An Area-I Air-Launched, Tube-Integrated, Unmanned System, or ALTIUS, is launched from a UH-60 Black Hawk at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., March 4 where the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center led a demonstration that highlighted the forward air launch of the ALTIUS. (Courtesy photo provided by Yuma Proving Ground)
The Army has awarded Sikorsky a $43 million deal for an array of modernization engineering efforts for the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, to include airframe enhancements, building out a “digital backbone” capability and work to integrate with launched effects.
Sikorsky described the contract as an initial award to move out on the modernization efforts, which follows the Army’s commitment to focus on upgrades for its UH-60 fleet following its aviation restructure last year.
“This initial work on airframe enhancements, main fuel and digital backbone set a strong foundation for further rapid capability updates to Black Hawk. With a more powerful engine, airframe enhancements and a main fuel upgrade, the aircraft will carry more payload at greater range, and future upgrades to flight controls to include autonomy and AI features that will assist pilots in tough conditions increasing mission safety and effectiveness,” Sikorsky said in a statement on August 20.
A Sikorsky spokesperson told sister publication Defense Daily the outlined upgrades will be retrofittable and available for new-build aircraft and that the company expects follow-on awards to “bring these capabilities into production and rapidly fielded to ensure the Black Hawk has the most current technologies to outpace our adversaries and support our soldiers for decades to come.”
When the Army announced its major aviation restructure in February 2024, which included canceling development of the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft, it detailed plans to award another multi-year contract for UH-60M Black Hawks with the newly freed-up resources and to prioritize modernization upgrades as it looks to continue flying the platform for decades.
“We continue to partner with the Army and our suppliers on the path forward to modernize the Black Hawk for operations into the 2070s,” the Sikorsky spokesperson said.
The Army is moving ahead on the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft, which will eventually replace a sizeable portion of the Black Hawk fleet, having selected Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft over a Sikorsky and Boeing team’s Defiant X coaxial rigid rotor helicopter offering.
The Army and Sikorsky in June 2022 signed the latest multi-year UH-60M Black Hawk contract, awarding the company a five-year deal worth $2.3 billion for delivery of 120 H-60M helicopters.
With options, the Army noted the 10th multi-year deal for Black Hawks could potentially be worth $4.4 billion and cover more than 250 helicopters, to include aircraft for FMS customers.
“Sikorsky is ready to implement new technologies that will strengthen the combat-proven Black Hawk helicopter and give U.S. Army soldiers greater advantage in areas like the Indo-Pacific,” Hamid Salim, Sikorsky’s vice president of Army and Air Force systems, said in a statement. “Integrating launched effects into the Black Hawk will enhance its capabilities and provide a significant advantage. Modernization is reducing costs, increasing efficiency and improving the overall maintenance and sustainment for the aircraft.”
The modernization work award supports the Army’s “near-term priority” to bring launched effects onto Black Hawks, with Sikorsky adding it will deliver a “federated capability” to further integration work in 2026.
“The 2026 delivery is intended to put that demonstrated capability into operational users’ hands. We envision continuing to further develop the capability and fully integrating the solution, in subsequent deliveries,” the Sikorsky spokesperson told Defense Daily.
Launched effects (LE) is the Army’s program to field new attritable autonomous air vehicles that can be launched from aircraft or ground platforms with a variety of payloads and mission system applications to provide a range of effects for reconnaissance, extended communications links and eventually lethal capabilities.
The Army recently released a solicitation notice for a new contracting vehicle to “rapidly procure” launched effects, as it aims to begin widely fielding capabilities in 2026.
Sikorsky has previously discussed how it sees the Black Hawk’s role with launched effects, and the Army has previously used the helicopters in early experimentation as it looked to inform its pursuit of the new attritable autonomous systems.
“That’s why we have zeroed in on what can the Black Hawk do to help, not do all of it, but certainly participate in some of it, and I think Launched Effects is a huge piece,” Jay Macklin, Sikorsky’s business development director for Army and Air Force systems, told reporters last year. “What we’re trying to do is feed that Common Operating Picture…Every asset out there is a sensor so what can Black Hawk do to close that kill chain for the ground commander?”
For the model-based systems engineering portion of the modernization work, Sikorsky said it will focus on “developing a digital thread of the Black Hawk for collaborative and effective design, testing and maintenance of the aircraft.”
“The Black Hawk digital backbone effort, supporting a Modular Open System Approach, will involve the development of advanced systems and software to support the aircraft’s modernization. This digital backbone facilitates rapid capability insertion to quickly respond to future platform mission needs,” Sikorsky said.
At a House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing in May, both Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Gen. Randy George, the service’s chief of staff, declined to offer a firm commitment on awarding another multi-year deal for more Black Hawks, and said they would have to get back to the committee with an answer on that decision.
“We are unwilling to make commitments that aren’t, in our opinion, in the best interests of soldiers and their lethality and keeping them safe if we deploy them anywhere in the world and to bring them home. So we can follow up with your office but right now we can’t answer that,” Driscoll said.
George said at the hearing he was “not aware” of any adjustments to previously discussed plans for the Black Hawk, reiterating that the Army intends to keep upgrading its fleet to the UH-60M model.
“I see [that] Black Hawks are going to be with us for a while, but I do think we’re going to have to adapt what we’re doing. There just may be less Black Hawks,” George said.
A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.
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