The Air Force announced Wednesday that each of the UH-1N Huey locations will receive replacement aircraft.

Malmstrom Air Force Base currently has eight Hueys that are slated for replacement.

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The Air Force is planning to award the contract by the end of September with deliveries starting in 2020.

Current Huey locations include (ICBM bases are noted with a *):

• Malmstrom*
• Eglin AFB’s Duke Field, Florida
• Fairchild AFB, Washington
• F.E. Warren AFB, Wyoming*
• Joint Base Andrews-Naval Air Facility Washington, Maryland
• Kirtland AFB, New Mexico
• Minot AFB, North Dakota*

Each stateside active duty Huey location will receive replacement aircraft pending the outcome of the environmental analysis, according to the Air Force.

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The Huey supports for Air Force missions: nuclear deterrence operations, continuation of government operations, survival school support and test and training, according to a release.

The replacement for the Huey will have improvements for speed, range, endurance, payload capacity and survivability, according to the Air Force.

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The purchase of new aircraft to replace the Huey fleet was approved by the 2016 Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Requirements Oversight Council.

The National Defense Authorization Act was approved by the Senate earlier this week includes $288 million for the Huey replacement program, according to Sen. Steve Daines.

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The Air Force told The Electric last summer that the replacement program has an affordability cap of $4.1 billion, including all aspects of the system including a period of integration of non-developmental items onto existing, airworthiness-certified baseline helicopters, low-rate initial production, full-rate production and sustainment transition support.

The Air Force had planned to award the contract this summer, but was delayed in part by a pre-award protest from Sikorsky.

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told Daines and Sen. Tester during a recent hearing that she believes the helicopters will still arrive at ICBM bases on the same timeline of sometime from 2020-2021.