President Donald Trump said on Monday morning that an American company owned by Lockheed Martin would take on the cost of building a helipad at the White House, one of the president’s many construction projects across Washington as he moves to leave his imprint on the nation’s capital.
He singled out Sikorsky, the manufacturer of the fleet of Marine One helicopters used by the White House for decades, as the reason such a project was needed in the first place — arguing that the company’s new, more powerful aircraft had torn up the historic South Lawn and sent chunks of sod flying to the doorstep of the Oval Office.
He claimed that the donation, which Lockheed Martin confirmed in a statement to NOTUS, was made because the company felt bad about the damage.
“Sikorsky is paying for it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “You know why? Because they didn’t tell us how powerful these helicopters were.”
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“The VH‑92A Patriot is a recognizable patriotic asset known around the globe for safety, security and reliability,” a spokesperson for Sikorsky said. “The helicopter delivers increased performance and reduced maintenance costs and time over the current fleet of presidential helicopters.”
The president also celebrated the beauty of the proposed helipad, which he said will have the White House seal carved in granite and will cost “about $5 or $6 million.”
Lockheed Martin told NOTUS the company’s decision to cover the costs of the project was “guided by rigorous ethics and compliance standards.” The company also confirmed the president’s estimated price tag for the project.
“Lockheed Martin has a long history of supporting projects in both the Washington, DC area and across the country,” a spokesperson for the company said. “This specific contribution was made to the Trust for the National Mall, the National Park Service’s non-profit organization.”
Sikorsky has manufactured the helicopters that have carried presidents since the 1970s. One of the company’s VH-92A Patriots is set to replace the older Sikorsky-manufactured aircraft that had carried presidents for decades — but there is one big problem: The VH-92A Patriot has powerful propulsion vents that direct exhaust downward, which can result in damage when landing on grass.
Small, round, rubber discs have been placed on the South Lawn to stop the damage before construction on the helipad, which began recently, is complete.
Trump reportedly sped up construction on the helipad ahead of an “upcoming state visit,” adding $875,000 to the project, according to The Washington Post. Documents obtained by the newspaper do not name the foreign leader planning to visit, but officials involved in the construction project requested to expedite the process days after Trump invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House on Sept. 24.
The addition of a White House helipad has been under discussion for years, according to a May report from The Washington Post. Trump has experience planning and building helipads — the Palm Beach Town Council approved the construction of a new helipad at his Mar-a-Lago Club in October, after the president’s first helipad was demolished in 2021 at the end of his first term.
“The hardest thing to get is a helipad,” Trump said Monday. “There’s no harder zoning thing to get, and I had like seven of them.”
The president’s push for a helipad adds to a wave of White House renovations and construction projects since the start of his second term — including the Rose Garden, where he replaced the lawn with a stone patio, the Lincoln Bedroom, where the president replaced the 1940s green title in the bathroom with black-and-white marble, and the approximately 90,000 square foot ballroom addition, which resulted in the demolition of the East Wing.
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