UH-60 Black Hawk: Don’t Mess With It

Meet the iconic UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. The U.S. Army's primary medium-lift helicopter was the result of lessons learned by the Army during the Vietnam War. While war in Southeast Asia validated the usefulness of helicopters in modern warfare, high helicopter and personnel losses led to a demand for a faster, better armored rotary wing transport aircraft. The result was the now iconic UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, the Army's frontline utility helicopter for the past 40-plus years. Now in its fourth decade of service, the Black Hawk was developed as a result of the Army's requirement in 1972 for a simple, robust, and reliable utility helicopter system to satisfy projected air mobile requirements around the globe. Named after the Native American war chief and leader of the Sauk tribe in the Midwest, Black Hawk, the first production UH-60A was accepted by the Army in 1978 and entered service in 1979 when it was delivered to aviation components of the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions. Over the years, the helicopter has been modified and upgraded to support evolving missions and roles, including mine laying, medical evacuation, and special operations. Today, the Army continues to integrate emerging technology enhancements into the Black Hawk fleet to increase the performance, reliability, availability, and maintainability of the platform through addition of technologies such as the integration of the improved turbine engine, upgrades to the airframe, including an improved troop seat for additional crashworthiness, and a lightweight composite all-moving tail. Developing and fielding an aircraft that has earned and maintained an extraordinary reputation of remarkable service supporting soldiers over a full spectrum of military operations these past 40-plus years is the direct result of the incredible efforts of all the government and industry teammates who've supported the Black Hawk program throughout the history of the program, said Colonel Billy Jackson, program manager for PO Aviation's Utility Helicopters Program Office. I'm exceptionally proud of this team and the Herculean effort everyone puts into managing a very complex program with such sustained success. For nearly half a century, the Black Hawk has served remarkably as the primary medium-lift multi-role helicopter for the U.S. Army. Although it's been around for longer than most of the current generation of soldiers it supports, don't expect to see it fly off into the sunset anytime soon. Black Hawk helicopters first saw action in the invasion of Grenada in 1983, followed by the invasion of Panama in 1989. The UH-60 saw extensive use in the 1991 Gulf War and the 1994 humanitarian mission in Somalia, where they participated in the famous Black Hawk Down Raid and ensuing battle. In the time after the September 11th attacks, Black Hawks have operated extensively in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2011, it was revealed that highly modified UH-60s had participated in the raid to kill Osama bin Laden. The Black Hawks are believed to incorporate a low noise blade configuration, anti-radar paint coatings, treated windshields and several hundred pounds of modifications to the aircraft's physical shape to make it less visible to radar. At least one modified Black Hawk participating in the raid was destroyed by U.S. forces after suffering a hard landing. Today's modern Black Hawks can cruise at speeds in excess of 174 miles per hour and climb at 1,315 feet per minute. They're operated by two pilots and two chiefs or gunners, but they can accommodate as many as 11 geared-out troops ready for a fight. And if it's a fight they're after, Black Hawk pilots can carry as many as 16 highly accurate Hellfire missiles and even air-to-air weapons like the AIM-92 Stinger missile. Mounting locations on either side of the helicopter allow for .50 caliber GAU-19A machine guns, M240 7.62mm machine guns or a General Electric M134 7.62mm six-barreled minigun for additional firepower. Extra Hellfire missiles can even be carried internally and then loaded into the launchers by the helicopter's air crew to increase its longevity in an engagement. Black Hawks can take a lot of punishment and they can operate in a lot of very tough environments, said Phil Linder, a former Army National Guard Black Hawk pilot, tells reporter, whether it's sand or snow, hot or cold weather, they're really built to operate in tough terrain. The modern Black Hawk. Today Lockheed Martin, which acquired Sikorsky Aircraft, makes four standard Black Hawk trends. The first, the armed Black Hawk, leverages weapon systems that are fully integrated into the helicopter's flight controls, which can identify and engage both stationary and moving targets. The HH-60W combat rescue helicopter variant is highly survivable in contested airspace. Designed with the specific needs of the U.S. Air Force in mind, the HH-60W, sometimes called the HH-60 Whiskey, comes with doubled fuel capacity for long-range rescue operations. The UH-60M is the latest iteration of the standard Black Hawk platform, specifically for the U.S. military. This helicopter leverages a wider rotor blade, creating an additional 470 pounds of lift, and comes equipped with the latest avionics and cockpit displays. The final version, the S-70, is a version of the UH-60M built for Poland and other countries. Black Hawks are awesome because the bird can touch down, dump its occupants and be out of there much faster than a CH-47, said Luke Ryan, a former Army Ranger. H-60s are great for fast roping. Fast roping is exactly what it sounds like. Troops literally slide down a rope, and it's one of the fastest ways to disembark a helicopter in combat. That's important because helicopters are bullet magnets, Ryan says. You want to limit your time in the air if possible. It's safer for the pilots and crew, and it's safer for all the ground guys to be out of there and on the ground where they can take cover and maneuver. 40 years of flying. Today, the U.S. military owns and operates more Black Hawks than any other air or rotorcraft, with more than 2,100 airframes in service. There are another 1,200 H-60 Black Hawks in operation across 30 allied and partner nations. Nearly 50 years after its first flight, the Army still considers the Black Hawk to be one of America's most important tools for expanding partner combat capacity and military capabilities. Although there are plans to retire the Black Hawk in favor of a more modern replacement, the Army's made it clear that it expects these highly capable medium-lift helicopters to remain in service through 2030. In what may be the biggest shift for Black Hawks in the history of these rotorcraft, Sikorsky is already working on converting older Black Hawks into fully automated drones, working alongside DARPA's Air Crew Labor and Cockpit Automation System program. If successful, old and new Black Hawks alike could soon be ferrying cargo and even people without the need for a pilot on board. The now legendary Black Hawk will continue to play a vital role in U.S. and allied military operations for years to come. But even as the sun sets on the Army's drab green fleet of H-60 combat rotorcraft, the future still looks awfully busy for this multipurpose workhorse. The Black Hawk was designed specifically for survival, and it would seem that it's going to go on doing just that. The UH-60 airframe will continue to serve until the early 2030s, when it will be replaced by the Joint Multi-Role Medium Helicopter, part of the U.S. Armed Forces' future vertical lift program. The two primary candidates are the Sikorsky Boeing SB-1 Defiant and the Bell V-280 Valor tiltrotor. Whichever aircraft wins, the UH-60 is guaranteed to be replaced with a bold new design that reaches new heights in speed and performance. In the meantime, the Army's preparing to field the new UH-60V, which upgrades older helicopters with an all-digital cockpit. The UH-60's design, influenced by the battlefields of Vietnam, will almost certainly fly in one form or another for a half-century or more.