The longtime helicopter owner is addressing a persistent problem: The new Marine One helicopters have a history of burning grass.
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For decades, U.S. presidents have stood, waved and boarded Marine One — the call sign of whichever helicopter is transporting the president — as they prepared to depart the South Lawn of the White House.
Now President Donald Trump is planning to alter that iconic image by building a permanent helipad, perhaps as early as this summer, according to three people familiar with the issue, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House planning.
Unlike some other Trump construction projects, the helipad idea is one that has been under discussion for years. It’s viewed by some internally as an overdue solution to a years-old problem: The new generation of Marine One helicopters runs the risk of burning the lawn.
As a result, the Marine Corps, which operates the helicopters used to transport presidents, has been unable to deploy the VH-92A at the White House, although it is used to support Trump’s travel elsewhere. The Marines, Sikorsky and Sikorsky’s parent company, Lockheed Martin, have spent years trying to find a solution.
The VH-92A has been envisioned for more than a decade as the full-time presidential helicopter. The Marine Corps received the final VH-92A in its 23-aircraft presidential fleet nearly two years ago at a cost of about $4.95 billion, or about $215 million each, according to a 2019 report by the independent Government Accountability Office. But they have yet to ferry a president to and from the South Lawn.
Officials instead continue to rely for that duty on older Marine One models, the VH-3D Sea King and the VH-60N White Hawk, that were originally set to be phased out three years ago. A Marine Corps aviation plan released in February said that the Sea King is now expected to remain in service through at least 2026, with the White Hawk expected to remain in service through 2030.
Asked about the status of the new helicopters, the Marine Corps said in a statement that the VH-92A “continues to support administrative lifts of the President outside the National Capital Region.” The service also said it will ensure that its Marine One squadron is “appropriately resourced to fly all required missions.” It referred all questions about the possibility of a helipad to the White House.
Spokespeople for Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky did not respond to questions about the possibility of a White House helipad, and instead touted the new helicopters’ capabilities.
“The VH‑92A Patriot is a recognizable patriotic asset known around the globe for safety, security and reliability,” Sikorsky said in a statement.
The people with knowledge of White House plans cautioned that — like other Trump ideas — the plans to build a helipad could change before a formal announcement.
Current and former officials said there have been long-running discussions about adding a helipad to the White House grounds.
“This is not a Trump wild idea,” said one retired military officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe White House and military planning. The retired officer added that past officials were dissuaded from pursuing a helipad given the historic resistance to making changes to the White House campus — a situation upended by Trump, who has torn down the White House’s East Wing, torn up the West Wing’s colonnade and made numerous other alterations to the historic building and its grounds.
“No one wanted to invest the political capital and time in this until they had ruled out other technical mitigation options,” the retired officer said.
Not everyone is convinced.
Ray L’Heureux, a retired colonel who oversaw Marine One missions as commander of Marine Helicopter Squadron One, said he remains opposed to building a helipad.
“I understand the conversation coming up again. It always comes up,” said L’Heureux, who retired in 2011. But he argued that it would be “stupid from an aesthetic standpoint” to install a helipad on the South Lawn because it is “historic” and the “back yard of the White House.”
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“I do think that nothing there is broken — so don’t mess with it,” he said. There are other ways to mitigate the new helicopters’ scorching problem, L’Heureux suggested, including rolling a temporary pad in place as needed.
Trump has long been an avid user of helicopters, relying on them during his long business career and bragging about his personal helicopter on “The Howard Stern Show” and in other outlets. The opening credits of Trump’s NBC reality show, “The Apprentice,” featured his Trump-branded helicopter flying through the skies above New York City. Trump is currently pushing to build a helipad at his Mar-a-Lago resort that would remain beyond his presidential term.
“You know, I’m very spoiled; I’ve had helicopters,” Trump said in remarks to Marine Helicopter Squadron One in 2017, before touting the purchase of the new VH-92A models. “And we ordered a couple of big, beautiful new ones.”
Trump has also used Marine One to render judgment on Washington’s landmarks, recently circling East Potomac Park as he plans to overhaul the golf course there.
The VH-92A was selected for the presidential helicopter squadron in May 2014, during the Obama administration. An earlier effort to replace the helicopters was canceled in 2009 by Defense Secretary Robert Gates after cost overruns.
The VH-92A’s scorching risks became public during Trump’s first term. A 2018 GAO report said the new VH-92A was “not meeting a key system capability requirement to land the aircraft without adversely affecting the landing zone” on the South Lawn.
Biden administration officials were surprised to learn when President Joe Biden took office in 2021 that the issue had not been resolved, said one person familiar with the issue. Administration officials at the time raised concerns not only about damage to the South Lawn, but about the problems the helicopters could cause when the president travels overseas, where the president also sometimes lands on grass.
“It wasn’t just that the issue wasn’t resolved,” this person said. “It was that the issue wasn’t on a path to be resolved.”
If a helipad is adopted now, it appears that Sikorsky and Lockheed will have effectively waited out the U.S. government on the issue, raising questions whether they should pay for the helipad’s installation, this person said.
The Marine Corps, in a response to written questions, said a “phased transition plan” is underway to shift to the new VH-92A that will be “event-driven, not time-driven.” Military and White House officials are working to “ensure the conditions are set” for a full transition to the new helicopter, Marine officials said in their written response.
To the south of the South Lawn is the Ellipse, another open space that is part of the White House grounds. L’Heureux said installing a helipad there instead of the South Lawn would create other problems, including a likely security requirement for the Secret Service to assemble a motorcade each time the president needs to fly.
The president also can fly into Washington and land in other locations, including Fort McNair, but it’s not as fluid, convenient or fast, L’Heureux said.
In his remarks to the Marine One squadron in 2017, Trump acknowledged that the helicopter flights had long “served as one of the most visible symbols of the presidency” and mused on their significance.
“Today, there are few sights more awe-inspiring than Marine One flying up the Potomac — true, incredible — past the Washington Monument and landing on the South Lawn of the White House,” Trump told the squadron in 2017. “It’s an incredible privilege to take that flight.”
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