Leonardo plans support center for Whiting Aviation Park after winning Navy helicopter bid

A company that was awarded a $176 million military contract to supply new training helicopters for the U.S. Navy plans to build a support center in Milton to provide technical support for the new helicopters, a decision being celebrated in Santa Rosa County as a big win for economic development. 

Italian-based company Leonardo, through Philadelphia-based AgustaWestland Philadelphia Corp., was awarded the contract with the Navy to supply 32 TH-73A helicopters to replace the aging TH-57 Sea Ranger, according to a press release from the Navy issued late Monday.

The aircraft will support the Advanced Helicopter Training Systems program at Naval Air Station Whiting Field and will meet advanced rotary wing and intermediate tilt-rotor training requirements for the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard through the year 2050. 

“The new Leonardo TH-73A helicopters are the cornerstone of AHTS, which is the planned replacement to address the capability and capacity gaps of the current aging TH-57 Sea Ranger helicopter training platform,” said Capt. Todd St. Laurent, Naval Undergraduate Flight Training Systems program manager, in the news release. “The TH-73A will provide a modern helicopter training platform that will serve rotary and tiltrotor training requirements into the foreseeable future. These new helicopters will ensure the Navy has capacity to train several hundred aviation students per year at Naval Air Station (NAS) Whiting Field in Milton, Florida.”

Leonardo enhances their bid:Company competing for new Navy training helicopter sweetens deal with Milton job plan

The new helicopters, which will be made in Philadelphia, will help student pilots better transition to combat helicopters. They're also the first Instrument Flight Rules single-engine helicopter certified by the Federal Aviation Administration in decades, allowing pilots to operate the aircraft safely in low visibility and challenging weather conditions. 

"It really opens up the amount of time these students can train," said Margaret Rogalski, a spokeswoman for Leonardo, in an interview with the News Journal on Tuesday. 

The base year contract is $176 million for 32 aircraft, but the total contract is valued at $648 million for 130 aircraft. Helicopter deliveries are scheduled to begin this year and will continue through 2024. 

New helicopters mean new training center for Milton

Besides being a win for the military and local pilot trainees at Whiting Field — which trains 100% of the Navy's helicopter pilots — the contract is also being considered a win for Santa Rosa County. 

In September, Leonardo announced it was "sweetening the deal" by including in its bid to the Navy plans for a 100,000-square-foot support center in Milton's Whiting Aviation Park, located directly adjacent to Whiting Field. 

Leonardo said it would build the support center if it won the bid, and officials said at the time that it would employ up to 50 people and will be used to service Leonardo's helicopters. 

Rogalski told the News Journal the day after the company won the bid that they planned to follow up on the  promise, and was already in discussions with the county's economic development team to begin the process. 

"(Whiting Aviation Park) shares a border with Whiting Field where the Navy trains," Rogalski said. "It'll be really easy and quick and seamless to transfer the aircraft that have sort of minor technical issues to the new support center."

When constructed, the support center will be the first industry to come to Whiting Aviation Park. 

Business bait:Whiting Aviation Park hopes to lure high paying defense contractors to Santa Rosa County

The county's 267-acre aviation park had been in the works since 2002, but became reality in 2016 thanks to a $8.5 million award from Triumph Gulf Coast. Triumph is the regional organization formed to disperse the $300 million of a $1.5 billion settlement with oil giant BP in the aftermath of the massive 2010 Gulf Coast oil spill. 

District 3 County Commissioner Don Salter said he was "ecstatic" to learn Leonardo had won the bid, in part because he has been working on the park for the better part of the past 20 years. 

"I think Leonardo coming is going to draw other aviation-type companies to the park," Salter said. "There should be a pretty good cluster of support companies coming into the park."

The park land was initially purchased to provide a buffer for the military base, and then Salter worked for several years securing an agreement with the federal government to allow the land to be used for Navy aviation maintenance. An agreement was finally reached in 2011, and the $8.5 million from Triumph will allow the county to start putting infrastructure in place that will pave the way for Leonardo and other companies to begin building maintenance facilities there. 

The park will be developed in about four phases, Salter said, with Leonardo's center being the first phase. 

Officials have not yet secured a firm timeline for construction to begin, but Rogalski said company leaders are "in active and ongoing discussions with Santa Rosa County officials and look forward to beginning development in the months ahead."

Salter said he looked forward to Leonardo bringing high-paying aviation jobs to the county. 

"The future of Santa Rosa County, I believe, is aviation and high-paying jobs," Salter said. "And I think Leonardo is just the first step in several companies to come." 

Annie Blanks can be reached at ablanks@pnj.com or 850-435-8632.