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First UH-60M Flies
The first "recapitalized" UH-60M Black Hawk flew at the
Sikorsky Flight Development Center in West Palm Beach, Florida on September 17.
Pilots Kevin Bredenbeck and Chris Geanacopoulos conducted a 75-minute shakedown
flight, and the aircraft met all test objectives including forward flight to 120
knots. The US Army's UH-60M recapitalization program is meant to recover
performance, cut operating and support costs, and provide digital connectivity
throughout the Black Hawk fleet. It gives the basic Black Hawk broad-chord,
all-composite main rotor blades, more powerful General Electric T700-GE-701D
engines, and an integrated cockpit with Rockwell Collins displays. The UH-60M
will replace the UH-60L as the standard configuration for all new US Army Black
Hawks in 2007, and remanufacture alone will put 1,217 UH-60M's in service by
2020.
Sikorsky will build four modernized Black Hawk prototypes. UH-60M No. 1 was
originally a UH-60A and will be the M-Model performance and handling testbed.
UH-60M No. 2, scheduled to fly in the 4th quarter of 2003, was remanufactured
from a UH-60L and will serve as the avionics test aircraft. Flight testing will
focus on the integrated cockpit displays, the Embedded GPS Inertial (EGI)
navigation system and the four-axis fully-coupled autopilot. To complete the
test effort, a new UH-60M will be built from scratch and one UH-60A will be
remanufactured as a Medevac HH-60M. UH-60M low rate initial production will
begin in 2004, and the remanufacturing line will induct 90 Black Hawks per year
by 2012.
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