Sikorsky is finalizing negotiations with the Department of War to produce Black Hawks, its workhorse helicopter, in Stratford and Bridgeport, Connecticut, for another four years.
Those talks come as the U.S. Army looks ahead to getting its hands on Bell Textron's MV-75 tiltrotor aircraft called "transformational" by one officer recently and a machine that might someday phase out the Black Hawk.
The UH-60 Black Hawk remains the Army's "utility helicopter for the near and midterm force" as worded in Pentagon budget documents the past few years. The Army now plans to purchase nearly 100 more over four years to maintain a fleet numbering more than 2,100 helicopters.
In the context of the Bridgeport-area economy, it is a major contract providing more work for more than 7,000 Sikorsky employees in Connecticut.
"Appreciation for the Black Hawk frankly dipped for a few years, and it was thought it could be less important than a lot of people knew it was — people who used it in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere all around the world," said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, who sits on the Senate Committee on Armed Services. "The Black Hawk is one of the all-time, star successful assets in our military arsenal. It is resilient, versatile and battle-hardened. It's been shot at in a lot of wars; it's been used to rescue people who are in that golden hour where their lives can be saved."
Blumenthal noted a number of international militaries rely on the Black Hawk as well that will not have the opportunity any time soon to purchase MV-75 tiltrotors.
Rich Benton, president of Sikorsky, noted that last week as well in an interview that touched on international Black Hawk sales. Benton noted Sikorsky also offers Black Hawk variants for non-military uses, to include Jayhawk maritime helicopters for the U.S. Coast Guard and the Fire Hawk helicopter for wildfire suppression and rescue.
"We still see significant international demand internationally for the aircraft we're building, and we believe that will continue," Benton said. "I think our helicopter provides a unique capability for both civilian and ... international militaries to get after their mission."
The manufacturer did not make an executive available for an update on the outlook for the Black Hawk, but a spokesperson forwarded a statement saying contractual negotiations are ongoing and calling the Black Hawk "iconic to the U.S. and allies". On Tuesday, the Federal Register published a notice of a pending contract with Brazil for a dozen Black Hawk helicopters, at a contract value of $950 million.
The Army has cited the Bell MV-75 among a handful of key programs in a new Army Transformation Initiative, created in response to the rapid development of emerging battlefield technologies by other countries. In an initial statement outlining ATI goals, the Army indicated it plans to cease production of the Boeing AH-64 Apache combat helicopter.
The $732 million earmarked for new Black Hawk helicopters in this year's National Defense Authorization Act is the most for any model of rotary aircraft, ahead of the funding for new CH-47 Chinooks made by Boeing outside Philadelphia in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania.
Nearly three years ago, Bell Textron beat out Sikorsky, Lockheed Martin and Boeing for the U.S. Army's next utility aircraft. Bell won with a tilt-rotor aircraft it now calls the MV-75, beating out Sikorsky's Defiant X proposal designed with stacked rotor sets that spin in opposite directions for greater maneuverability than the Black Hawk and other traditional helicopters.
Bell Textron is now readying a Texas factory for mass production of the MV-75. The Army is looking to accelerate production beyond its initial timeline with an eye on an eventual fleet of about 1,000 MV-75 tilt-rotors, according to the industry trade publication FlightGlobal.
Rotary aircraft production is ramping up even as U.S. military planners eye the rapid development of drone technologies and strategies by Ukraine and Russia, and "area denial" weapons systems that were effective against helicopters in the early stages of the war.
"There's no question there's an arms race," Blumenthal said. "It's a heavily technology-based race to add stealth and armaments and electronic warfare tools to disable drones that may be sent at helicopters."
Speaking in June during a U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on the heels of a Ukraine drone attack on Russian bombers that caused billions of dollars of damage, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll acknowledged the raid was a wake-up call.
"The world saw, in real time, how readily available technology can disrupt established power dynamics," Driscoll said. "We as a nation have to set a moonshot to figure out, ‘How do we defend against these low-cost drones?’"
In the past few years, Sikorsky has been talking up the potential of Black Hawk helicopters to launch drone attacks from the air closer to their final targets, whether for attack or surveillance.
"I view drones as complementary, right? How are we going to be able to leverage this system we have and be able to use drones to do mission substitution?" Benton told CT Insider last week. "Our aircraft can be the node on the network providing that capability and integrating information."
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