REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. – U.S. Army aviation experts are ordering late-model UH-60M and HH-60M Black Hawk utility helicopters for missions like armed reconnaissance and troop transport, medical evacuations, and search and rescue.
Officials of the Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., announced a $433.2 million order Friday to Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company in Stratford, Conn., to provide the Army with nine UH-60M and HH-60M helicopters. The order brings the contract's total to $4.7 billion.
The twin-engine UH-60M Black Hawk, the newest model of the Black Hawk family, can serve in extreme conditions, and is designed to replace the older UH-60A Black Hawk. It is the centerpiece of the Army's long-term effort to modernize the service's medium-lift helicopter fleet. Sikorsky has manufactured the Army Black Hawk since 1978.
The HH-60M Black Hawk, meanwhile, is the medical evacuation configuration of the MH-60M Black Hawk. It is a specialized multi-mission helicopter that can support medical, personnel or cargo transport missions. The aircraft is equipped with state-of-the-art medical systems to provide critical care for as many as six patients.
Medical equipment
Medical systems include a patient litter system, an on-board oxygen generation system, medical suction, patient monitors and high intensity night-vision-compatible lighting.
The aircraft also is equipped with advanced avionics and special mission systems to assist the crew in locating and rescuing injured personnel. Specialized equipment includes a forward looking infrared (FLIR) system and an external rescue hoist.
The UH-60M Black Hawk features an advanced integrated digital cockpit designed for enhanced situational awareness. Each helicopter has four multi-function digital displays for flight data, and moving map displays. Avionics include a GPS/INS for precise navigation, autopilot with automatic flight control system, and modes like flight path stabilization, hover velocity hold, altitude hold, and ILS coupling.
Its flight management system handles route plotting and real-time positioning and precision instrument approaches, while flight-control computers enable adaptive controls and zero-vibration operations.
Avionics
Avionics include an improved laser warning system, integrated vehicle health management with flight data and cockpit voice recording, and enhanced heads-up displays for better visibility. Defensive systems like updated sensors pair with the digital glass cockpit for special operations variants.
Sensors aboard the UH-60M include the degraded visual environment pilotage system, which uses LIDAR and longwave infrared cameras with a terrain database to provide 3D imagery through dust, sand, fog, or snow to help land the helicopter safely using helmet displays.
Forward-looking infrared turrets, such as the MEDEVAC Mission Sensor or Talon multi-sensor systems, offer infrared imaging, color and low-light cameras, laser rangefinders, and pointers for surveillance, target acquisition, and night operations.
Powerful engines
Compared to earlier models of the Black Hawk, the UH-60M incorporates upgraded T700-GE-701D engines, improved rotor blades, and modern electronic instrumentation, flight controls and aircraft navigation control.
The UH-60M provides additional payload and range, advanced digital avionics, better handling qualities and situational awareness, active vibration control, improved survivability, and improved producibility. The UH-60M can fly as fast as 151 knots at altitudes to 15,180 feet to distances as far as 276 nautical miles between refuelings.
The UH-60M's new composite spar wide-chord blade provides 500 pounds more lift than the UH-60L blade. The General Electric T700-GE- 701D engine will add more horsepower and allow additional lift during external sling load operations.
Cockpit displays
The UH-60M cockpit includes multi-function displays; flight management systems; modern flight control computers with fully coupled autopilot; an integrated vehicle health management system with flight data and cockpit voice recorder; inertial navigation systems with embedded global positioning systems; improved data modem; and improved heads-up displays. The narrower cockpit instrument panel will also significantly improve chin window visibility.
Sikorsky and the Army have had the UH-60M in full-rate production since late 2007, and by early 2009 the company had delivered it first 100 UH-60M rotorcraft to the Army.
On this contract Sikorsky will do the work in Stratford, Conn., and should be finished by December 2027. For more information contact Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, online at www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/sikorsky-uh-60m-black-hawk-helicopter.html, or the Army Contracting Command-Redstone at https://acc.army.mil/contractingcenters/acc-rsa/.
