UH-60 Black Hawk

The Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk is a twin-engine, four-blade, medium-lift military utility helicopter built by Sikorsky Aircraft in the United States. Winner of the U.S. Army's Utility Tactical Transport Aircraft System (UTTAS) competition in December 1976, it entered service in June 1979 to replace the Bell UH-1 Iroquois as the Army's tactical transport, carrying 11 equipped troops or, in its UH-60L/M versions, a 4,100 kg (9,000 lb) sling load. By January 2023, 5,000 H-60s of all versions had been built, and the UH-60 was in service with 35 countries as of 2024. The family also includes the U.S. Navy's SH-60 Seahawk (covered separately), the Air Force's HH-60 Pave Hawk and the civil S-70.

Development

The Army drafted its UH-1 replacement requirement in the late 1960s on Vietnam experience. The UTTAS request for proposals of January 1972 demanded air transport inside a C-130 Hercules, which capped cabin height and length, plus twin engines, run-dry gearboxes, redundant flight-critical systems and crashworthy seats and fuel system. Sikorsky built four YUH-60A prototypes; the first flew on 17 October 1974, and three went to the Army in March 1976 for a fly-off against the Boeing Vertol YUH-61A. The Army chose the Sikorsky design in December 1976, took delivery of its first UH-60A in October 1978 and fielded the type with the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade in June 1979.

Weight growth led to the UH-60L, ordered in 1987 with the SH-60B Seahawk's T700-GE-701C engines, gearbox and automatic flight control system, which raised external lift by 450 kg (1,000 lb) to 4,100 kg (9,000 lb); it was produced from 1989 to 2007. The UH-60M, approved in 2001 to carry the design into the 2020s, began manufacture in 2006, and the Army approved full-rate production in December 2007, against a planned buy of 1,227 aircraft. The Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft programme, launched in 2019, selected the Bell V-280 Valor tilt-rotor in December 2022 for its planned UH-60 replacement.

Design

The UH-60 has a fully articulated four-blade main rotor with elastomeric bearings and a canted four-blade tail rotor on a rigid crossbeam. Two General Electric T700 turboshafts power it; the UH-60M's T700-GE-701C/D engines are each rated at 1,418 kW (1,902 shp). The long, low fuselage, shaped for C-130 carriage with partial disassembly, is flown by two pilots and two crew chiefs or gunners. The UH-60M carries 1,450 kg (3,190 lb) internally, including 11 seated troops or six stretchers, or 4,100 kg (9,000 lb) on the hook. Empty weight is 5,675 kg (12,511 lb) and maximum take-off weight 9,979 kg (22,000 lb). Maximum speed is 294 km/h (159 kn), combat range 590 km (320 nmi), ferry range 2,221 km (1,199 nmi) with stub wings and tanks, and service ceiling 5,800 m (19,000 ft).

The External Stores Support System (ESSS), in service since 1986, adds a stub wing with two pylons on each side for two 870 L (230 US gal) and two 1,700 L (450 US gal) tanks or 4,500 kg (10,000 lb) of weapons. Because four tanks blocked the door guns, a two-tank External Tank System followed, and Army aircraft were converted to the Crashworthy External Fuel System with up to four 760 L (200 US gal) crashworthy tanks with self-sealing fuel lines. The UH-60M added wide-chord main rotor blades, an Integrated Vehicle Health Management System and a glass cockpit.

Armament

Standard armament is a pair of door-mounted guns: 7.62 mm M240 machine guns, 7.62 mm M134 miniguns or 12.7 mm GAU-19 Gatling guns. The four ESSS hardpoints take 70 mm Hydra 70 rockets in seven-tube M260 or 19-tube M261 pods, up to four AGM-114 Hellfire laser-guided missiles or two AIM-92 Stinger air-to-air missiles per station, gun pods from 7.62 mm to the 30 mm M230 and the VOLCANO mine-dispensing system. The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment's MH-60L Direct Action Penetrator gives up the troop cabin for a gunship fit of M230 30 mm cannon, 19-shot Hydra 70 pods, Hellfire, Stinger and GAU-19 and M134 gun pods, with M134D miniguns as door guns.

Operational History

U.S. Army Black Hawks first saw combat in Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989. In the 1991 Gulf War Black Hawks took part in the largest air assault in Army history, involving more than 300 helicopters; two Black Hawks were shot down on 27 February 1991 during combat search and rescue sorties. On 14 April 1994, two Army UH-60s were destroyed over northern Iraq by U.S. Air Force F-15s that mistook them for Mi-24s, killing all 26 aboard. Two more were shot down in the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, and the type served in the Balkans and Haiti, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and throughout the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns. On the night of 1–2 May 2011, two low-observable 160th SOAR MH-60s carried the assault force of Operation Neptune Spear into Abbottabad, Pakistan; one crash-landed and was destroyed by the team. As of January 2025 the Army operated about 20 UH-60As, 800 UH-60Ls, 931 UH-60Ms, 90 UH-60Vs and 365 HH-60L/M medevac aircraft. On 29 January 2025, a 12th Aviation Battalion UH-60L collided with American Eagle Flight 5342 near Washington National Airport, killing 64 on the airliner and the three crew.

Export deliveries began in the 1980s with 24 S-70C-2s to China, 39 S-70A-9s to Australia and the first Colombian UH-60s in 1987; Mitsubishi builds the UH-60J/JA under licence in Japan and Korean Air licence-built more than 130 UH-60Ps for South Korea. Israel's 10 surplus UH-60As, received in August 1994, first fought in Lebanon in 1996. Australia retired its S-70A-9s on 10 December 2021 and ordered 40 UH-60Ms in January 2023 to replace the MRH-90 Taipan, with 15 delivered by mid-2025. The Philippines bought 16 S-70is in March 2019 and 32 more in February 2022, the last arriving in August 2026; Greece contracted 35 UH-60Ms in April 2024, Sweden ordered 12 in June 2024, Brazil authorised 12 in July 2024 and Croatia eight under a $500 million case approved in January 2024. Ukraine's intelligence directorate has flown at least two UH-60s since February 2023, and a further UH-60A+ was paid for by a Czech crowdfunding campaign.

Variants

• UH-60A Black Hawk: Original Army version with T700-GE-700 engines, produced from 1977 to 1989 and later re-engined or rebuilt to UH-60L standard.
• UH-60L Black Hawk: Production model of 1989–2007 with T700-GE-701C engines, improved-durability gearbox and the SH-60B's flight control system.
• UH-60M Black Hawk: Current production version since 2006 with T700-GE-701D engines, wide-chord blades, IVHMS diagnostics and a glass cockpit; the HH-60M is its medevac derivative.
• UH-60V Black Hawk: UH-60L fitted with the UH-60M's digital cockpit; 90 were in Army service in January 2025.
• MH-60M Black Hawk: 160th SOAR version of the UH-60M with refuelling probe, CAAS cockpit, AN/APQ-187 Silent Knight terrain-following radar and YT706-GE-700 engines.
• HH-60W Jolly Green II: U.S. Air Force combat rescue derivative of the UH-60M, delivered from November 2020 to replace the HH-60G Pave Hawk.
• S-70i / S-70M Black Hawk: International versions assembled by PZL Mielec in Poland, delivered to the Philippines, Poland, Brunei and Colombia and ordered by Indonesia.