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White House Gets $6M Lockheed Helipad to Protect Lawn From Marine One

The Nation Times Team


The White House has a brand new helipad on the South Garden.

President Donald Trump took off in Marine One from the helipad after an official ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday.

Trump beforehand mentioned the White Home would obtain the granite helipad, paid for by Sikorsky Aircraft — a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin — to help the brand new fleet of helicopters used as Marine One.

A Lockheed Martin spokesperson confirmed the contribution and instructed Enterprise Insider it was being made to the Nationwide Park Service.

Trump beforehand mentioned the everlasting fixture would assist defend the South Garden’s grass.

The newer helicopters from Sikorsky are about “two and a half instances extra highly effective than the previous ones,” Trump mentioned.

“Once you land on the grass, it is not that the grass will get discolored. It will get ripped out,” he mentioned.

The helipad bears the White Home seal and value between $5 million and $6 million.

“Sikorsky is paying for it. You realize why? As a result of they did not inform us how highly effective these helicopters have been,” Trump mentioned. “They usually felt a bit bit responsible.”

A Sikorsky spokesperson mentioned that the brand new mannequin for presidential transport — the VH-92A Patriot — delivers “elevated efficiency and diminished upkeep prices and time over the present fleet of presidential helicopters.”

A White Home spokesperson didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Photographs have proven the helipad being constructed amid different large building tasks the administration is endeavor to remodel the White Home consistent with Trump’s imaginative and prescient.

The helipad confronted not less than one setback when Trump ordered contractors to redo parts of the work, leading to crews having to dismantle the almost 100-foot-wide granite seal that was already in progress, The Washington Put up reported.

Throughout building, Marine One relied on the Ellipse, the park south of the White Home, as its touchdown zone.

Beneath are images tracing the historical past of presidential helicopter landings on the White Home and the outcomes of the brand new helipad.

Aviation pioneer James Ray landed an autogyro, an plane with a spinning rotor on prime, on the White Home South Garden for the primary time in 1931.


A helicopter lands on White House South Lawn

James Ray touchdown an autogyro plane on the White Home South Garden.

Library of Congress/Interim Archives/Getty Photographs

James Ray parked a Pitcairn-Cierva PCA-2 autogyro on the South Garden as a part of an award ceremony, in line with the Nationwide Air and Area Museum. It was the primary recorded occasion of a rotary-wing plane touchdown on the garden.

In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower turned the primary US president to make use of helicopter transport from the White Home garden.


President Dwight D. Eisenhower stands next to a helicopter

President Dwight D. Eisenhower is about to board a helicopter from the White Home South Garden.

Common Historical past Archive/Common Historical past Archive/Common Photographs Group through Getty Photographs

The primary documented occasion of Eisenhower boarding a helicopter from the South Garden was on July 12, 1957, in line with The Historical past Channel.

The Marine Corps web site states that helicopter transport helped flip a two-hour motorcade right into a seven-minute helicopter experience.

Helicopter transport for the US president to and from the White Home South Garden later turned normal working process for short-distance journey.


Richard Nixon giving a "V" sign.

President Richard Nixon offers his iconic “V” signal as he departs from the White Home South Garden after resigning the presidency.

Bettmann/Bettmann Archive

The White Home helicopter transport was named Marine One, a name signal for a Marine Corps plane carrying the president.

The fleet is operated by Marine Helicopter Squadron One, generally known as HMX-1 or the Nighthawks.

Marine One has develop into some of the seen symbols of presidential journey, subsequent to Air Force One.

As a substitute of a everlasting helipad, White Home personnel would place giant touchdown disks on the South Garden for Marine One helicopters.


Employees place landing pads on the White House South Lawn

White Home personnel place touchdown targets on the South Garden of the White Home

Nicholas Kamm/AFP through Getty Photographs

The touchdown targets present the plane with a secure contact level and will cut back turf harm.

The South Garden isn’t any match for the brand new Sikorsky plane.


Sikorsky VH-92A Patriot takes flight.

Sikorsky VH-92A Patriot changed the older fleet of helicopters for Marine One.

Craig Hudson/Reuters

In 2024, Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky formally delivered the VH-92A helicopter to the US Marine Corps to exchange the older fleet of plane used for Marine One.

The federal government spent $5 billion on the brand new fleet.

Bloomberg beforehand reported in 2024 that points with the VH-92A scorching the South Lawn have delayed the plane’s potential to move the president.

Trump says building of the presidential helipad is underway.


Construction on the White House South Lawn

A helipad is underneath building on the White Home South Garden

Win McNamee/Getty Photographs

Photographs present that the grass on the South Garden has been eliminated to make manner for the development of the everlasting granite helipad.

“For 50 years, we have been touchdown helicopters on grass,” Trump instructed reporters in July. “The grass is moist, soggy.”

Essentially the most eye-catching a part of the White Home helipad undertaking is already being torn aside.


White House Helipad

The helipad design contains a 100-foot-wide granite presidential seal.

AP Photograph/Mark Schiefelbein

In early August, contractors have been photographed eradicating the roughly 100-foot-wide granite presidential seal.

In keeping with reporting by the Washington Put up, the redesign got here after Trump questioned the helipad’s look and the South Garden’s slope.

It is unclear how a lot the revisions will add to the undertaking’s price ticket.

Trump has repurposed the Ellipse till the helipad building is accomplished


The Ellipse near the White House is shown Thursday, July 30, 2026, in Washington.

The Ellipse is a park with a big garden south of the White Home.

AP Photograph/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Whereas building continues on the White Home’s new helipad, Trump has quickly shifted Marine One operations to the Ellipse, a park south of the White Home.

The Washington Put up reported that Trump has pushed to have the helipad completed earlier than China’s chief, Xi Jinping, is predicted to go to later in September.

The helipad is just one of many building tasks the White Home goes by means of underneath Trump 2.0.


A view of the White House South Lawn under construction.

A helipad is underneath building on the White Home South Garden.

Kevin Carter/Getty Photographs

Different renovation tasks pursued underneath the second Trump administration embrace the demolition of the East Wing to make room for a 90,000 square-foot White House ballroom.

The undertaking is estimated to value $400 million.

The administration additionally hosted a UFC fight on the White Home in June, quickly turning the South Garden into an area.

By September, the granite presidential seal of the helipad was in full view.


Bird's-eye view of the South Lawn of the White House.

Crew staff restore the garden after the brand new helipad is accomplished.

Finn Gomez/Getty Photographs

The development undertaking started round June, in line with The Washington Put up.

On September 6, Trump introduced in a Fact Social publish that the helipad was accomplished.

Trump departed from the White Home helipad after a ribbon-cutting ceremony


President Donald Trump boarding Marine One

President Donald Trump boarded Marine One from the brand new White Home helipad.

Joey Sussman/ZUMA Press Wire through Reuters

Trump boarded Marine One en path to New York following a ribbon-cutting ceremony on September 21.

Trump’s remarks from the ceremony have been largely drowned out by the helicopter and different background noises. Main TV networks additionally pulled protection of the occasion after some news outlets were banned from the White Home, making it almost unattainable to listen to what Trump was saying.





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