Airbus recently put the demonstrator for its MQ-72C drone helicopter through the paces for the U.S. Army. The MQ-72C has been in development for several years now for a U.S. Marine Corps competition seeking a new uncrewed cargo-carrying Aerial Logistics Connector (ALC). The Marines see uncrewed logistics ‘connectors’ as key to future expeditionary and distributed operations, and a similar Army requirement could be on the horizon, especially to support long-range air assaults.

Jaysen Yochim, Senior Director for the ALC program at Airbus, talked about the demonstration for the Army with our Howard Altman at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual convention on Monday. Airbus is currently teamed with L3Harris Technologies, Shield AI, and Parry Labs on development of this drone helicopter for the Marines, as you can learn more about here.

The current iteration of the MQ-72C is based on the crewed UH-72B Lakota, which is in turn a variant of Airbus’ H145 twin-engine light helicopter. The Army operates crewed UH-72s today, but only in non-combat roles, including counter-drug and border patrol missions, and almost exclusively within the borders of the United States.

The MQ-72C demonstration for the Army, which Airbus self-funded, took place last week at Huntsville Executive Airport just outside of Huntsville, Alabama. The service has a major presence in the Huntsville area, which is focused heavily on supporting aviation and missile developments. As of April of this year, Airbus and its partners had already conducted four rounds of autonomous flight testing of the initial demonstrator version of this design, which is not in a fully uncrewed configuration.

“We did a demonstration for the Army down in Huntsville, really to show all the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop so far on the Marine Corps-funded program,” Yochim said. “We had a total of five demonstration flights that we did down there, showing everything from the autonomous capability of the aircraft in a hover.”

This included “complex hovering patterns, both step turns and fly-through turns, similar to what you’d see on an airfield, to just show how it can be integrated onto an airfield inside of the existing routing structure and everything that exists on an airfield,” he continued. “We did multiple traffic patterns to demonstrate just a normal traffic pattern, like a normal day would be, but also traffic patterns or a flight with a no-fly zone popping up in the middle of the flight.”

The video below shows previous flight testing of the MQ-72C demonstrator.

In that latter instance, the MQ-72C had to “autonomously make decisions” about how it was “going to route itself around the no-fly zones” once they popped up, he added. The human operator did provide the initial flight plan. There was also a pilot on board during the autonomous flight demonstrations, but only as an added safety margin, and they “never had to take control of the aircraft once,” according to Yochim.

Though the demonstrator now has provisions for a pilot, the intention is for the MQ-72C to eventually operate in a completely uncrewed mode. The current version of the design has two LIDAR sensors, facing front and back, as well as an electro-optical camera at the nose end, to help with navigation and otherwise provide situational awareness while operating in the uncrewed mode.

Those sensors feed “imagery into the flight computer with HiveMind that’s interpreting that through its perception systems to make decisions on the go,” Yochim explained. HiveMind is an autonomy software package from Shield AI, which is in use on a growing number of other uncrewed platforms, as you can read more about here.

Yochim also talked about work that has already been done to start laying the groundwork for controlling the MQ-72C in the fully uncrewed mode. Parry Labs has been leading ground control station work.

“Over the summer is really where now the aircraft, rather than having a pilot inside the aircraft, or sorry, an autonomous operator inside the aircraft, using a gaming computer to tell the aircraft what to do, now the aircraft is receiving commands from a ground control station,” he told us. “That is that human in the loop, sending commands to the aircraft over Starlink, so that it has beyond line-of-sight. We’ve had flights that have been autonomously commanded from up to 70 miles away. All of that is stuff that’s happened in the last year. We also have where the aircraft can be commanded from both a ground control station like this and also with the Samsung tablet.”

SpaceX’s Starlink space-based network and its more secure, government-focused cousin, Starshield, are in increasingly widespread use across the U.S. military for communications and other purposes. At present, Starlink also dominates the commercial market for these services globally. Starlink and Starshield offer highly persistent and robust connectivity that is ideal for uncrewed aircraft command and control operations.

The current MQ-72C demonstrator also lacks certain features that are expected to be found on the final configuration. Plans for a set of clamshell doors at the nose notably still have yet to be realized. The UH-72 design already features clamshell doors at the rear of the fuselage, as seen below. The end goal is for the uncrewed version to have an open pass-through main cabin, offering major advantages for loading and unloading cargo, and doing so rapidly.

The nose door arrangement has been “designed. It’s been 3D rendered. It’s gone through some testing on that end, but not flight testing,” Airbus’ Yochim told us. “The flight testing, wind tunnel testing, things like that, take time, and it’s just not been the priority to get there with getting the aircraft ready.”

Yochim said that Airbus is now looking toward the 2029-2030 timeframe for integrating the nose doors. This is tied, in part, to the Marine Corps’ ALC program, where delayed funding has shifted the schedule to the right. On that front, the Marine Corps is aiming for demonstration of this capability in an operationally relevant context next year. The Airbus-led team is also not the only one under contract for that program, with Near Earth Autonomy and Honeywell also working on a design based on the Leonardo AW139 helicopter. The expectation is that the Marines will eventually pick a single ALC design to actually acquire.

In the meantime, Airbus is clearly eyeing other opportunities, including with the U.S. Army. The company’s main arm in Europe is also now pitching a functionally identical U145 drone helicopter based on the current generation H145 design.

At @ILA_Berlin, we introduce the Airbus U145: an uncrewed, fully autonomous variant of the H145. Optimised for cargo with no cockpit, an integrated nose door, and full autonomy, its first flight is set for late 2026. https://t.co/MbodUxYxyI pic.twitter.com/2EnMXzog6c

— Airbus Helicopters (@AirbusHeli) June 8, 2026

Airbus did the “demonstration to just show the Army the capabilities that we’ve been developing with the Marine Corps,” Yochim told us. “So the Marine Corps has been funding the program up to now, and so the message we are giving the Army is this is how far your sister unit [sic; service] has been able to get us with the funding that we’ve had. It’s already product that’s out there. It’s already product that’s working.”

As mentioned, the Marines see ALC as part of a larger family of uncrewed logistics ‘connectors,’ in the air and on the surface, which will be critical to supporting expeditionary and distributed operations involving units spread across far-flung forward locations. The service sees this as particularly central to an island-hopping campaign scenario in the context of a larger potential high-end fight with China in the Pacific, where traditional logistics chains will be top targets. The conflict with Iran has only underscored how disruptive those threats can be.

The Army is facing many of the same kinds of future operational scenarios, especially when it comes to supporting future airmobile operations. The service is already expecting air assaults to take place over far greater distances in the future thanks to the introduction of the MV-75A tiltrotor. Those units will need to be supported once they arrive at their objectives, which could be heavily contested.

“We did several [air assaults] over the last few years directly from Fort Campbell to the Joint Readiness Training Center, which is 500 miles, give or take. The [Marine Corps’ MV-22] Osprey can do that very fast and in one leap,” Army Maj. Gen. David Gardner, head of the 101st Airborne Division, told our sister site Task & Purpose at AUSA. “Our current helicopters, you’ve got to make some fuel and re-arming stops along the way, and the distance isn’t there. But now that helped us think through as a division how we were going to command and control something that moved, expanded our battlefield, so to speak, twice as far, three times, four times as far, and twice as fast.”

The 101st is the Army’s premier air assault formation and is set to be the first to fly MV-75As operationally.

“We can put some things inside the helicopter, and we can put some things under a helicopter with a sling load. We’re not going to sling load something moving 250-ish knots for 500 miles. We’re not going to hang Humvees under that,” Gardner also told Task & Purpose. “We learned some things about how we need to get our equipment to the battlefield, how we need to get our sustainment to the battlefield at those distances, how we might need to rely on autonomous logistics delivery systems.”

It should be stressed that the market for semi-autonomous aerial logistics support is heating up, and that the MQ-72C is not the only option to meet such a requirement. As noted, there is another competitor in the running just for the Marines’ ALC effort, the AW139-based offering from Near Earth Autonomy and Honeywell.

Last year, Sikorsky, now a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, revealed that it was working on a fully uncrewed version of the Black Hawk helicopter that also features a clamshell nose. Sikorsky has also been working with Robinson Unmanned on a pilotless version of the smaller R66 helicopter that again features clamshell doors at the front of the fuselage. Bell, together with Near Earth Autonomy, is developing an uncrewed cargo-carrying version of its Model 505 Jet Ranger X, as well. The drone versions of the R66 and Jet Ranger X are aimed primarily at another Marine Corps ‘connector’ program called the Medium Aerial Resupply Vehicle-Expeditionary Logistics (MARV-EL).

As mentioned, the Army does already operate crewed UH-72s, but it also flies Black Hawks. The service is also expanding its use of contractor-operated R66s for pilot training.

The Army does not appear to have formalized any requirement for a cargo-carrying drone helicopter yet. At the same time, the comments from Maj. Gen. Gardner certainly suggest one may be emerging now.

There was at least enough interest within the Army already to accept Airbus’ offer of a demonstration of its MQ-72C last week.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

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Sikorsky is aiming to start offering a new modular and readily swappable nose for the venerable H-60 family of helicopters within the next year or so. The noses will be made available on new-production H-60s, as well as be retrofittable to helicopters in service now. The ‘nose jobs’ will help operators relatively quickly reconfigure their H-60s for very different missions, from cargo-carrying to serving as gunships, as required. It also opens new avenues to integrating autonomous capabilities and other advanced functionality.

Our Howard Altman had a chance to speak with representatives from Sikorsky, now a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, about the plans for the new nose for the H-60-series at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual convention today. This is part of a larger vision for keeping the design operationally relevant into the 2070s, which also includes uprated engines and increased total payload capacity. You can read more about the overall Black Hawk 2070 strategy here.

Of the different elements of Black Hawk 2070, “the nose is a good one, and it’s one that’s on a pretty accelerated timeline. Within the next, I would say, year or so, the nose will be available to be retrofitted or to be coming off the line,” Jason Wrigley, Sikorsky’s director of business development for Black Hawk, said. “We’ve gone through a design cycle with it.”

As it stands now, the new nose structure will offer roughly double the physical space of the standard nose on current-generation H-60s today.

“We’ve done the design. We then 3D-printed the noses, and we did that so that we can physically interact with it, because the whole point of this is for maintainability and access to be able to integrate these different sensors and comms gear,” he continued. “We’ve gotten some feedback from the engineers, from operators, from maintainers, and that goes back into the next cycle of the design.”

Exploring ways to optimize accessibility to areas of the new nose was a major focus of this ‘test print,’ according to Wrigley. Sikorsky has a scale model on the show floor at AUSA this week that highlights how the current design opens from the top, as seen below. Ensuring that it will be possible to keep any systems inside sufficiently cooled has also been an important design consideration already.

Overall, “we just are kind of confirming, can we reach everywhere we need to? What are the different configurations?” he added. There’s been “a lot of work with the [U.S.] Army around what do you envision potentially could go in here?”

“This is one of those cases also where our whole engineering team gets more comfortable. It’s not something where the Army came to us and said, ‘this is exactly what I want. Here’s my spec,'” he also noted. “It was more, ‘here’s what I want to achieve. Here’s what I want to be able to do.’ And so we went off and designed that.”

“I like to highlight this, because it’s part of the way we’re also changing the way we design and deliver the Black Hawk,” Wrigley added as an aside. “So we’re very much in a model-based environment.”

While Wrigley mentioned sensors and communications equipment as possible payloads to fit into that extra space initially when talking with us today, he made clear later on that these are just some of the potential options.

“It’s using the old term, but it’s open architecture, and so the whole point is whatever the mission requires” can go into these new extended noses, he explained. “There’s always a demand for real estate up front.”

It’s very true that more specialized variants of the H-60, such as the MH-60s operated by the U.S. Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, often have modified noses loaded with radars, other sensors, and additional systems. The new HH-60W Jolly Green II rescue helicopters for the U.S. Air Force are another prime example of this, and there are many more.

“There’s a big focus on open architecture and that ability to quickly plug-and-play,” Wrigley also told TWZ earlier this month in the context of the larger Black Hawk 2070 plan. “The new modular nose will change the look of the Black Hawk up front to provide even more space for equipment that will work directly with the new digital architecture.”

In terms of swapping out modular noses on individual helicopters, Wrigley said that it is still too early in the design process to know exactly how that would be done and how long it might take to do so in practice.

“Part of the design process is to also write up the documentation for the retrofit, but we don’t see this one as very invasive,” he explained.

It is not hard to imagine use cases for long-nosed H-60s, especially ones that can then be reconfigured between missions, and not just for the U.S. Army. As Wrigley already underscored, there is long-standing demand for H-60s with longer and larger noses to accommodate additional mission systems. Modular noses, in general, have been becoming more and more common in aviation design for some time now.

The ability to readily swap modular noses could also allow operators of even relatively small H-60 fleets to gain a valuable new degree of multi-mission capability. As one example, cargo-carrying helicopters could be converted into gunships, and back again, as required, using a small common pool of noses with the requisite sensors, laser designators, and other equipment. All of this could offer cost benefits when it comes to sustainment and logistics, as well as added operational flexibility.

The long-nosed Black Hawk model on display at AUSA is notably configured as a gunship. Sikorsky has also talked previously about leveraging the new nose to reconfigure H-60s for search and rescue, airborne drone control, and other missions.

Just being able to install a radar for one series of missions, and then quickly switch over to an electro-optical wide-area surveillance system or another kind of sensor for the next run of sorties, would bring new adaptability to the already very flexible Black Hawk. Defensive systems could also be readily swapped from aircraft to aircraft, as well as more quickly upgraded, as needed.

The modular nose also opens the door to a new way to integrate advanced capabilities, including autonomy packages, which Wrigley said is also driving demand for more space at the front end of the helicopter. Sikorsky has been developing various tiers of autonomous capabilities for the H-60 family for years now, including artificial intelligence-driven ‘copilots’ designed just to help reduce the workload of human crew members and increase safety margins. Autonomous flight capabilities require additional sensors, such as LIDAR and cameras, to help with navigation and to provide additional situational awareness. At least some of those components could be hosted within new modular noses.

At the same time, integrating higher degrees of autonomy could require more substantial modification. Sikorsky is now developing a fully uncrewed version of the H-60, and has been doing so with an eye toward converting older Black Hawks to this configuration as they are retired from service, as you can read more about here.

In line with the Black Hawk 2070 vision, the modular noses could be part of a broader equation for modernizing existing H-60 fleets, as well.

“In our conversations with the Army, I think they’ve been using a phrase that they call targeted modernization,” Wrigley told us, speaking more generally. “There’s a daunting task that says there’s 1,000-1,500 Black Hawks in inventory. If you literally tried to upgrade every one of them, it’s a very expensive proposition, and it probably takes a long time.”

“I don’t think that’s the way they’re thinking about it. I think they’re thinking about it more on a battalion basis or a unit basis,” he continued. “Like, what’s the mission, and maybe certain Black Hawks get upgraded with autonomy, and other Black Hawks get upgraded with sort of the expanded launched effects capability, the engine, the structural upgrades, the [stub] wings, stuff like that.”

“Maybe some of them become ‘Superhawks’ or whatever, [and] get the whole package,” he added.

There is certainly still work to be done on the development of the new modular nose and then actually integrating it onto the H-60 platform. At the same time, Sikorsky clearly already sees demand for this new feature, which could lead to a breadth of new opportunities for new and old helicopters in the H-60 line.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

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Ministers approve ‘urgent’ NIS 1 billion purchase, with most of the funds to come from slashing 5-year plan to improve Arab society, after US was said readying to drop deal

The UH-60 Black Hawk has been the rugged workhorse of U.S. Army aviation for nearly 50 years, with around 4,000 examples currently in service with 36 nations worldwide. Many of these helicopters, and new aircraft coming off the line, are set to fly as far out as 2070, and Sikorsky is curating a suite of upgrades to keep them valuable assets for the future fight. A new “digital backbone” is designed to underpin swift technological insertions such as launched effects, with related initiatives including the provision of more power to lug greater payloads, and the fully-autonomous U-Hawk cargo drone variant.

“As part of an overall “Black Hawk 2070” modernization effort we’re developing a number of complementary capabilities, including our U-Hawk uncrewed cargo variant, which we plan to fly later this year,” Jason Wrigley, Sikorsky’s director of business development for Black Hawk, told TWZ at the company’s Stratford plant in Connecticut.

“A new digital backbone for the Black Hawk is at an advanced design phase in our labs and it’s designed to provide interfaces throughout the aircraft that will provide power, data, a network, cooling and most importantly, open architecture interfaces that enable the easy integration of new equipment, such as sensors. We see this as a core building block for the next generation of Black Hawk, along with new engines and other airframe improvements designed to futureproof the platform.”

The new digital backbone is designed to work in concert with a modern, software-driven strategy that meets the Army’s Modular Open Systems Approach and the desire to add technologies cheaper, faster, and more easily. Wrigley says that as customers identify new capabilities and needs for their Black Hawks, the digital backbone will be sufficiently efficient to permit customization even on a mission-by-mission basis. Sikorsky is also introducing a new modular nose to the H-60, which is reconfigurable with sufficient volume to support even more sensors and electronics.

“There’s a big focus on open architecture and that ability to quickly plug-and-play,” says Wrigley. “The new modular nose will change the look of the Black Hawk up front to provide even more space for equipment that will work directly with the new digital architecture.”

The new modular nose will give the Black Hawk more than twice the internal volume of the original nose section and it’s designed to provide space for internal electronics and an integrated mount for external sensor pods. It is designed to provide sufficient space to accommodate electronics that enable roles such as search and rescue, drone control, and flying in degraded environments, and it will also house some of the equipment required as the Black Hawk’s autonomous capabilities expand.

Joshua Powers spent 22 years as an Army Aviation officer flying the Black Hawk, and he’s well qualified for his new role with Sikorsky handling business development for rapid capabilities insertions. “Army units know the Black Hawk inside out; how to fly it, maintain it, and use it to maximum effect. The upgrades we are developing will bring new capabilities faster, without time-consuming and complex changes to sustainment, training, and operations, plus we are adding more range, more payload, and more power to meet the demands of the Indo-Pacific region.”

“I find it amazing to pair new technology with a rugged platform like the Black Hawk. These new innovations are needed to meet the needs of the new complex battlefield. The fight I fought in Iraq is very different from the current operating environment and what future warriors are going to go up against, and what we’re asking them to do is very different from what came before.”

Bringing autonomous co-pilots to the Black Hawk

Autonomy is a central pillar of Sikorsky’s strategy for the future Black Hawk. The company’s MATRIX autonomy software is now being matured on a UH-60M variant, and while it’s not necessarily designed to completely replace pilots, MATRIX will assume some of their workload, making flying safer and simpler as mission sets grow increasingly complex and dangerous. “Pilots that are controlling collaborative drones, for example, need to be able to focus on the drone mission, and autonomy will help lighten their cognitive load,” explains Wrigley.

“The standard Black Hawk crew operates with two pilots. Adding our MATRIX autonomy system gives the operator options – a single pilot could fly without an unbearable workload and still fulfil a mission commander role, for example. The Army could then operate the Black Hawk with no pilots at all when that’s the appropriate option.”

Sikorsky’s MATRIX autonomy has been developed on the company’s UH-60A fly-by-wire Optionally Piloted Black Hawk, which has been tested by Sikorsky and Army aviators. MATRIX has accumulated more than 1,000 flight hours across 500 tests and demonstrations. It has already been integrated on over 20 different platforms, including on the Black Hawk for testing by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army in multiple exercises.

“We delivered the first UH-60MX to the Army earlier this year,” says Wrigley. The delivery marked the first full authority fly-by-wire and optionally-piloted UH-60 in the Army fleet. “They are using it for testing and soldier feedback to develop tactics, techniques and procedures for the autonomous Black Hawk. We have since received a contract to deliver three more MX aircraft to the Army.” 

MATRIX autonomy kits have now been installed on all three U.S. Army Black Hawk models; the UH-60A, UH-60L and UH-60M. Sikorsky plans to incorporate autonomy options into all Black Hawks as they are built, plus the MATRIX system will be able to be retrofitted to existing examples.

Powers is well aware of the benefits autonomy will provide from complex combat operations to more mundane day-to-day missions. “Flying at night and seeing the tracer fire coming up at you, things like that, I honestly feel that’s not the big threat. It’s when you’re going to land and there’s just a big dust cloud. When you’re tired, you aren’t as focused. Having MATRIX, whether that’s with one, two, or no pilots, it’s about that reduced workload on the mission. Pilots won’t be as fatigued, plus they have the safety net of a fully autonomous aircraft that can, if needed, land in all of those difficult environments. It will give commanders more operational flexibility and the ability to mitigate risk in less-than-ideal conditions dictated by the enemy or weather.”

“The Black Hawk operation isn’t just about pilots, it’s also that integrated four-person crew. As a pilot, you’re relying on your senses and also on the guys in the back to watch out and tell you where you’re going. MATRIX is just going to help that team effort and put you in a better position to bring the crew back safely. It integrates all the systems and sensors and uses altitude, airspeed, radar altimeter, drift indications, and puts the fly-by-wire technology to where it can make rapid adjustments and changes based on what it’s seeing with the sensors.”

The volume of testing, the maturity, and the confidence in MATRIX helped Sikorsky to develop the S-70UAS, or U-Hawk, which was unveiled in 2025. The U-Hawk project essentially removes the cockpit and its associated equipment from a Black Hawk and replaces the front end with cargo doors to provide a huge internal space as a supply drone.

“We acquired a used UH-60L Black Hawk as the template for our initial U-Hawk. We added the clamshell doors and that was the actual aircraft that we showed at AUSA last year,” says Wrigley. “Since then we’ve been adding the fly-by-wire and integrating the MATRIX autonomy. It’s currently in our innovations hangar in Bridgeport, Connecticut, getting the final work done and it will make its first flight as a U-Hawk later this year.”

Sikorsky sees the U-Hawk as a natural evolution for the Black Hawk in contested logistics missions, when cargo needs to be moved but the threat is sufficiently high that it drives a need for uncrewed platforms to tackle the mission. 

“We’re spending a lot of time on the U-Hawk and its roles. As well as being an uncrewed cargo helicopter, it can also be a truck that can carry a large volume of launched effects,” explains Wrigley. “There are Black Hawk models on the market right now that are being divested, and we see those as being an ideal option for conversion to U-Hawk configuration to affordably introduce this capability to the market.”

Drone dispenser

The integration of small drones dubbed ‘launched effects’ into rotary-wing operations is a major initiative from the Army as a new means to collect intelligence for commanders on the battlefield, relay communications, jam and distract enemy emitters, and act as loitering munitions. These mini air-launched drones can be carried and fired from stub-wing-mounted launchers, with other concepts seeing larger volumes of them carried inside the cabin as a “mega-pack,” with Sikorsky seeing both as being highly-applicable to both the Black Hawk and the U-Hawk.

This is exactly the kind of capability that the digital backbone in the Black Hawk is intended to open the door to; installing plug-and-play drone command kits, which could enable the Black Hawk to act as a “drone mothership” to launch, task, and command swarms of multi-mission launched effects.

The Army tested its latest operational concepts for launched effects during the Project Convergence Capstone 6 demonstration event this summer. This annual exercise is designed to develop concepts and tactics as well as gather soldier feedback, as it works to transition new systems into service. The latest exercise built on previous launched effects testing on the Black Hawk, when a UH-60M deployed Anduril’s Altius-700 launched effects that then operated as an autonomous hunter-killer team to locate targets, share data on those targets, and then strike them, without the need for the Black Hawk to expose itself to threats.

“As a young Black Hawk pilot, the OH-58 Kiowa Warrior was the primary scout platform, but it was limited by range and its ability to be detected,” explains Joshua Powers. “Today, we launch small drones that can remain unseen and they can give us real-time feedback. Launched effects make our lift assets more capable.”

“We see the Black Hawk as the aircraft capable of carrying, deploying and then acting as an airborne mission command node for launched effects,” adds Jason Wrigley. “In the operational environment of the future, it’s really about the mass of those launched effects. This isn’t about carrying one or two of them, this is about carrying and controlling a large number of them.”

“We’ve tested them on the stub-wings, but we are also exploring what we call “quiver” – that large number of launched effects inside the cabin in that “mega-pack.” This creates additional opportunities for mass that we think is going to be really critical. We’ve done a lot of operational analysis in concert with the Army on what the right mix of launched effects might be to extend the standoff range of the aircraft to improve survivability – which is of course what it’s all about – but the right mix will ultimately come down to the mission. We have seen a lot of testing over the past few years, so we do believe this is a capability that can be introduced operationally soon on the Black Hawk.”

More power for more missions

To support the increased lift that might be needed for a missionized Black Hawk lugging large payloads, including an arsenal of launched effects, Sikorsky is well along in development of a new engine that is designed to create over 1,000 pounds of increased payload capacity and increased range for the Black Hawk. The T901 Improved Turbine Engine (ITE) from GE Aerospace provides 50 percent more horsepower over the existing T700 engines in the UH-60M.

“One of the key building blocks of the future of the Black Hawk are the twin ITEs as we look to expand the mission capability and the utility of this aircraft for decades to come,” explains Wrigley. Sikorsky began initial testing of the first UH-60M with ITE in January 2025. “We are actively in the test program right now at our test facility in West Palm Beach, Florida. The twin ITEs in each Black Hawk and that additional power translates into some pretty significant operational opportunities. Since our first flight with ITE in May 2025 we’ve flown the aircraft with the new engine for over 50 hours and up to 17,000 ft above sea level.”

Sikorsky is accompanying the addition of the new engines with a significant expansion of the fuel tank to increase capacity and range. This is being done without impinging on cabin volume and thus retaining the important ability to transport 11 combat troops, while increasing range by around 100 nautical miles. “The T901 also improves fuel efficiency and eases maintenance – so overall we are really improving the payload capacity of the aircraft. We’ll be getting to the milestone C production decision on ITE within the next couple of years, and at that point it will become a core element of the Black Hawk program going forward,” Wrigley explains.

Building Black Hawks

Touring the Black Hawk production line in Stratford, Connecticut, it’s a hive of activity. Many of the major components for each helicopter are manufactured here. The long final assembly line sees teams of workers busily constructing UH-60M and HH-60M medevac Black Hawks for both domestic and foreign military sales customers, along with new HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopters for the U.S. Air Force and MH-60R Seahawks.

“We’re designing all of these upgrades with the intent that they will all be available off the production line in new build aircraft, as well as in kit form for upgrades to existing assets in the field,” notes Wrigley. “Here in Stratford in what we call the “back shop” we build all the rotor blades, gearboxes, and many other components that go into each aircraft. We are already thinking ahead and we’ve invested significantly into additive manufacturing, with 11 parts on the Black Hawk today that are additively manufactured. It’s a great place to start, but there’s a long way to go and we’re working on qualifying more challenging components and load-bearing parts.”

Cohesively, the digital backbone, larger fuel tank, new engines, and the new modular nose will all be introduced on the production floor in the coming years to pave the way for that increased payload capacity to carry fully-equipped combat troops, supplies, and all the new kit needed for the future fight and the Black Hawk’s role as a multi-mission forward battlefield node. The autonomous U-Hawk and the optionally piloted flexibility afforded by MATRIX – all of these pieces of the future Black Hawk are presently coming together under an overarching effort.

“The future Black Hawk will be that complement to the future long-range MV-75 Cheyenne II,” says Powers. “These won’t be a one-for-one replacement for every Black Hawk currently in the fleet – the MV-75 has a specific purpose and function that the Black Hawk isn’t designed to do. What the Black Hawk can do with these new upgrades is shape the battlefield and with its autonomy be out there flying missions into contested environments.”

“Those homeland missions are equally necessary. I recall talking about this in flight school when choosing an aircraft to fly, how it’s one thing to be deployed on combat missions, but it’s also about being back in the homeland on disaster relief when you need the Black Hawk to go out and save lives, those kinds of missions the Army National Guard does – it really underlines the importance and versatility of the Black Hawk.”

Over the past 50 years and looking ahead to the next 50, continuing the proven legacy of the Black Hawk will mean constant evolution to meet new missions and needs. Sikorsky’s task is for all of these new elements to meld into a future Black Hawk that’s ready to roll off this production line soon, that still also provides the same dependable, rugged capability for the Army at home or overseas, well into the future.

The post Sikorsky’s “Black Hawk 2070” Strategy Includes Drones, New Engines, And Flying The Pilotless U-Hawk This Year appeared first on TWZ.

Ukraine's 413th Separate Raid Regiment of the Unmanned Systems Forces struck the Snizhne Machine-Building Plant in occupied Donetsk Oblast in September, working with other Defense Forces units, the regiment posted on 6 October, sharing a video of the strike. The General Staff reported the strike on the plant on 11 September, saying that the extent of the damage was being clarified.

The strike adds to Ukraine's campaign of long-range attacks on Russian military targets as Russia has begun its winter campaign of strikes against Ukraine's energy infrastructure. Hitting the suppliers of aircraft parts goes after Russia's ability to keep its attack jets and helicopters flying.

The regiment said the plant works for Russia's military industry, producing engine components for attack aircraft and combat helicopters.

A former Motor Sich plant in occupied Snizhne

The Snizhne plant was a separate division of Motor Sich, a Ukrainian aircraft-engine maker based in Zaporizhzhia, a city that remains under Ukrainian control. Snizhne has been under Russian occupation since 2014. The plant specializes in producing parts for gas-turbine engines, including compressor and turbine discs and blades, the General Staff said. It never built whole engines. In September 2014, months into the occupation, it was machining blanks from Motor Sich's Zaporizhzhia plant into turbine blades and was one of only two plants in the former Soviet Union making such blades for helicopters, a plant worker said.

Motor Sich said in December 2017 that it had lost control of the plant. Weeks later, Viacheslav Bohuslaiev, then Motor Sich's honorary president and a member of parliament, told RFE/RL's Donbas.Realii that Motor Sich still owned the plant and had handed its management to a foreign company, while keeping it under the company's "full control."

In February 2023, Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office served Bohuslaiev a notice of suspicion of aiding a terrorist organization, alleging that Motor Sich shipped blanks to the Snizhne plant and received finished engine parts through foreign-registered companies. The case went to court in October 2023, and Bohuslaiev, who denies the charges, has been in pretrial detention since October 2022 as the trial continues.

Snizhne, which Russia uses as a rear base, has been hit before. In May, Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces and the Security Service of Ukraine struck a Russian training center for drone pilots in the city, and in September, a strike on energy infrastructure cut power across Snizhne.

President Donald Trump’s departure from the White House South Lawn earlier today marked the first operational use of its new granite helipad, and the VH-92A Patriot — not the older VH-3D Sea King or VH-60N White Hawk — was the airframe that carried him off the pad. The flight represented a dual milestone: the first time a VH-92A had carried the president from the White House, and the first operational use of the roughly $5-6 million helipad that was built to enable regular operations by the helicopter from this location.

President Trump boards Marine One on the new helipad @BorderHawkNews pic.twitter.com/Go62kRyHGP

— Wid Lyman (@Wid_Lyman) September 21, 2026

Trump marked the occasion with a ribbon-cutting on the South Lawn, using a pair of oversized gold scissors to sever a red, white, and blue ribbon before shaking hands with White House officials and members of the construction crew. Auxiliary power unit noise from the waiting VH-92A drowned out any remarks Trump may have made on the landing area; he instead posted afterward that the flight was the “maiden voyage” from the newly completed pad. He did not stop to take shouted questions from reporters before boarding for the helicopter’s first flight off the new surface. The VH-92A took Trump to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, with his final destination New York, where he will be at the UN General Assembly this week.

.@POTUS cuts the ribbon and officially opens the new helipad on the South Lawn of the White House pic.twitter.com/BgpCBtBIB8

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 21, 2026

JUST NOW: @POTUS departs the White House on Marine One using the NEW helipad en route to New York@taymitchell_tv pic.twitter.com/srMfqB5nYY

— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) September 21, 2026

President @realDonaldTrump just performed the official ribbon-cutting ceremony on the new @WhiteHouse helipad, thanked the construction professionals that made it so beautiful & flew off in the new Marine One to address the United Nations General Assembly on continuing MAGA wins. pic.twitter.com/z75dayaVo7

— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) September 21, 2026

The VH-92A’s operational limitation in this context had been its exhaust and rotor system. Heat and rotor wash directed downward from the helicopter had scorched and torn up the South Lawn’s turf badly enough that the Marine Corps continued relying on the VH-3D and VH-60N for White House landings even after the VH-92A entered presidential service under Biden in August 2024. Trump has said the newer helicopter is roughly two and a half times more powerful than the airframes it’s replacing — powerful enough, by his account, that a single landing once left “half of the grass…sitting in front of the Oval Office front door.”

For decades, Marine pilots set down on a simple metal disc placed directly on the South Lawn turf — a low-tech solution that worked well enough for the lighter VH-3D and VH-60N, but that pilots occasionally missed, tearing up grass around the marker in the process.

Construction of the new helipad began in late June but hit a snag in early August. As you can read about here, Trump ordered contractors to tear out and redo weeks of work — including a 100-foot-wide carved granite presidential seal that was already taking shape — reportedly over dissatisfaction with the pad’s appearance and the slope of the surrounding lawn.

Scoop: Trump has ordered workers to redo weeks of work on his planned White House helipad

new WaPo photos show how past work was removed over weekend

Trump is contemplating changes to White House lawn's slope, raising bigger Qs about project and costhttps://t.co/tGrkmg6Go3

— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) August 4, 2026

The South Lawn’s natural grade, reported at up to 20 degrees in places, exceeds FAA heliport guidance calling for landing surfaces to be reasonably level. In the interim, Trump had been using the Ellipse, a park south of the White House, as a temporary landing zone — a workaround today’s flight presumably does away with.

The first take off from the new White House Helipad!

(Eisenhower Executive Office Building) pic.twitter.com/xLmXHcvXbE

— Bobby Levy (@realBobbyLevy) September 21, 2026

Sikorsky, the Lockheed Martin subsidiary that builds the VH-92A, is financing the helipad project. Trump has said this is intended, at least in part, as compensation for not fully disclosing how disruptive the helicopter’s exhaust characteristics would be. The four-inch-thick granite, quarried in California, has been promoted by Trump as effectively indestructible, with a “million-year” lifespan. That claim, like similar durability promises made about his Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool refurbishment — which reportedly saw paint fade and its liner peel within days — has not been independently substantiated.

The helipad is the latest in a string of exterior additions Trump has made to the White House since returning to office, most notably two roughly 88-foot flagpoles installed on the North and South Lawns in June 2025. Trump said the building had “needed flagpoles for 200 years” since the only flag previously flew from the roof, and described paying for the poles — about $50,000 each — himself.

Landing on the White House lawn is only the most visible of the VH-92A’s issues. TWZ has tracked the $5-billion, 23-aircraft program’s string of setbacks for years.

A 2021 Pentagon testing report found the helicopter failing to meet the reliability, availability, or maintainability thresholds set for it, judging it fit for routine “administrative” runs but not for the emergency contingency missions the role actually demands. Central to that finding were flaws in the aircraft’s Mission Communication System, the secure link meant to keep the president connected to the National Command Authority in a crisis — a system a Pentagon summary said often delayed critical communications at the beginning of contingency missions.

Meanwhile, today’s flight doesn’t necessarily mean the older airframes are done at the White House.

The Marine Corps has said it intends to retire the iconic VH-3D Sea Kings fully this year, but plans to keep flying the VH-60N through at least 2030 for its hot-and-high-altitude performance. This means the ‘White Hawk’ could make occasional South Lawn appearances even with the VH-92A now cleared for routine use.

Whether today’s departure becomes the new baseline, or proves to be a one-off tied to the ribbon-cutting itself, will be revealed in how often the VH-92A — versus the older ‘White Top’ fleet — appears on the pad in the weeks ahead, particularly once the higher-profile test of Chinese Premier Xi Jinping’s state visit arrives.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The post Marine One VH-92A Makes First Operational Use Of New White House Helipad appeared first on TWZ.

The U.S. military’s top officer on Wednesday talked about how AI is changing the character of warfare and offered two examples to illustrate his points. His comments included new insights into how two U.S. Army AH-64 Apache crew members were rescued after being shot down by an Iranian drone near the coast of Oman in June. The recovery effort involved America’s first known use of an uncrewed surface vessel (USV) executing a personnel recovery action as part of a military search and rescue operation.

“Information moves so fast that leader decision times have compressed from weeks down to days down to seconds,” explained Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during his keynote speech at the Air & Space Forces Air, Space and Cyber Conference that TWZ is attending. “In the future fight, advantage will go to the side who can see first, who can understand first, decide first, and act first, and along the way, be a learning organization, and no factor is accelerating change as fast as artificial intelligence and advancing cyber capabilities.”

“AI is here now, and it’s already changing the way militaries see, sense, decide, and act across the joint force,” the chairman proclaimed.

The first example Caine used to highlight these changes took place on June 8. After the Apache went down, “U.S. CENTCOM launched a rapid, responsive joint search and rescue effort to recover the crew. That response drew on the totality of the joint force, and ultimately was required to use enabled unmanned vessels to participate in the rescue of downed U.S. service members for the first time ever.”

As we noted in our previous coverage, CENTCOM deployed “a U.S. Navy Corsair unmanned surface vessel,” the command’s spokesman told us at the time.

The ability to pull off that rescue mission “did not appear overnight,” Caine pointed out. “It came from the men and women of Task Force 59, CENTCOM’s forward-leaning unmanned joint maritime unit who spent the last several years testing, integrating, and operationalizing unmanned systems and AI in one of the most demanding and kinetic environments on Earth right now.”

“What helped make this possible was not a bunch of general officers and flag officers,” Caine continued. “What made this possible was a bunch of entrepreneurial sailors and members of the joint force on watch floors, at piers, managing networks of unmanned systems across thousands of miles of water, and using AI to turn massive amounts of data into a crisp, clear, perfect maritime picture that allowed us to go grab those two soldiers in the water.”

The second example Caine shared about the use of AI “points in the other direction, not how quickly we are using these tools, but how quickly these tools are changing the threat.”

In Ukraine, “we see first-person view drones operating in heavily contested EMI [electromagnetic interference] environments. Some now using AI-enabled computer vision to continue to drive towards targets, even when there’s no GPS or the links are cut. That gives small units affordable precision and shows how quickly software and autonomy are changing what is possible at the tactical edge, and the results are stark.”

The use of AI to enable lower-end drone warfare is a topic TWZ has been among the first to point out.

“In certain locations on the front line of troops right now, the life expectancy of a new Russian recruit arriving on the front lines is as little as 20 to 30 minutes,” Caine added. “Think about that. This is what happens when low-cost precision is fielded fast, adapted quickly, and scaled across the battlefield.”

“The price of lethal exchange is decreasing day over day,” the chairman noted. “One wonders what the future of close air support looks like, but I am comforted by the fact that each and every one of you are in this room thinking about that. Taken together, these examples from the Straits of Hormuz to the front lines in Ukraine show how quickly technology is changing the character of war, and this means our joint force needs to do two things at one time.”

“[W]e need to prepare the joint force to win in this kind of conflict,” the general stated. “We have to assume from now on that our formations will be hunted by autonomous systems, jammed across the spectrum, and tracked in real time, and we have to transition the joint force to be prepared to fight and win our future war by generating and delivering lethality at scale with an agile, optimized, high-low mix of combat capabilities to give the young members of the 2.8-million member all volunteer joint force the tools that they need before they need them.”

Contact the author: howard@twz.com 

The post Apache Crew Rescue Highlights Need For AI In Combat Says Joint Chiefs Chairman appeared first on TWZ.

The U.S. Air Force has stood up a new squadron at Andrews Air Force Base to manage the arrival of HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopters to replace aging UH-1N Twin Hueys. Originally designed for combat search and rescue (CSAR) missions, the HH-60Ws assigned to the 5th Helicopter Squadron will be in a specialized configuration to take on the tasks of ferrying VIPs around the nation’s capital and supporting continuity of government plans. Questions have been raised about using Jolly Green IIs in these roles, and how this may impact the ability of the overall fleet of these helicopters to meet CSAR demands.

The Air Force held a ceremony at Andrews yesterday to mark the formal activation of the 5th Helicopter Squadron, also sometimes abbreviated as 5 HS. The 1st Helicopter Squadron (1 HS), with its UH-1Ns, will continue to operate throughout the transition to the HH-60W, which is expected to be completed in 2030, to avoid any gaps in capacity to meet critical operational requirements. A total of 26 Jolly Green IIs are set to be based at the facility, which is situated just outside Washington, D.C., a one-for-one replacement for the Twin Hueys that are there now. The arrival of the new helicopters will also lead to a small increase in total personnel, 60 in total, at Andrews.

The Air Force originally planned to supplant all of its UH-1Ns worldwide with new MH-139 Grey Wolf helicopters, which is a more direct replacement in terms of size and capability. The service is still acquiring MH-139s to supplant UH-1Ns elsewhere, including ones assigned to Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) units that help provide security around Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos. We will come back to this later on.

“The HH-60W’s increased speed, range and carrying capacity will better deliver safe operations for U.S. senior leaders, service members, and the communities around the region,” the Air Force said in a press release regarding the 5th Helicopter Squadron’s activation.

The Jolly Green II also has in-flight refueling capability, something that is not found on the UH-1N or MH-139, and could be very valuable for missions around Washington, D.C. The HH-60Ws heading to Andrews are set to receive additional modifications, including to the main cabin seating arrangement, communications suite, and defensive capabilities, as you can read more about here.

“In the next few years, the 5 HS will train aircrew and maintainers, establish operational and maintenance processes, and receive new aircraft as it prepares to execute the national security mission within the National Capital Region,” the release yesterday added.

National Capital Region (NCR) refers to a larger area that surrounds Washington, D.C., proper. Air Force operations in and around the NCR are primarily managed through a unit called the Air Force District of Washington (AFDW).

The HH-60Ws will be taking over an AFDW mission set from the UH-1Ns that currently includes daily airlift sorties transporting U.S. and foreign VIPs around the nation’s capital. The helicopters will also be in position to swing into action as part of continuity of government plans. In such a scenario, the Jolly Green IIs would be tasked to help rush senior officials and lawmakers to safety to ensure the continued functioning of federal authorities following an attack or a similarly serious contingency. 1st Helicopter Squadron’s role in responding to the terrorist attack on the Pentagon on 9/11 was highlighted during the activation ceremony at Andrews yesterday.

The NCR presents particular challenges for crisis response missions and routine day-to-day flight operations. The airspace around Washington, D.C., is most densely defended and heavily monitored anywhere in the United States, and packed full of military and civilian air traffic every day. Where and when military helicopters can operate over the nation’s capital has been a hot topic of debate since a fatal mid-air collision involving an Army UH-60 Black Hawk and a PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet in January 2025. The Black Hawk was conducting a continuity of government training flight at the time. This has been more recently highlighted by an incident involving a Marine One helicopter carrying President Donald Trump earlier this month. A subsequent Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigation has highlighted communication issues and factors tied to the construction of a new helipad at the White House.

It is also worth noting here that Marine Helicopter Squadron One (HMX-1), the primary unit responsible for the Marine One presidential helicopter mission, would play a role in any continuity of government scenario in the NCR. Helicopters from the U.S. Park Police, as well as ones belonging to other law enforcement and civilian agencies, would be utilized, too.

As mentioned, there are significant questions about the impacts of basing HH-60Ws at Andrews will have on the rest of the Air Force’s Jolly Green II fleet. This is something TWZ highlighted when the Air Force confirmed it was moving ahead with the AFDW HH-60W plan with the release of its 2027 Fiscal Year budget request earlier this year.

A particular issue is the Air Force’s decision years ago to scale back total purchases of HH-60Ws, from 113 helicopters down to 91. If the service does not order more Jolly Green IIs in the coming years, this will mean that roughly a third of the entire fleet will be assigned to the AFDW mission.

The Air Force previously confirmed the plan will involve taking HH-60Ws out of “back up inventory.” In the past, the service has defended this decision as being “more cost effective” than a move to “procure additional MH-139A aircraft” to meet AFDW requirements. Whether or not there were other specific operational considerations that factored into the decision to use Jolly Green IIs to meet these needs instead is unknown. The acquisition plan for the Grey Wolf has also been significantly truncated, with the Air Force now planning to buy just 56 of these helicopters instead of 80.

“The MH-139A Grey Wolf was competitively selected to replace the UH-1N for intercontinental ballistic missile security and National Capital Region missions, including continuity of government and transport of United States government officials and security forces,” members of the House Armed Services Committee wrote in a report accompanying a draft of the annual policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for the 2027 Fiscal Year, back in May. “The committee remains concerned regarding the justification for transitioning these missions to an alternate rotary-wing platform and seeks additional details on cost and operational implications.”

At that time, the House Armed Services Committee explicitly directed “the Secretary of the Air Force to submit a report to the congressional defense committees not later than December 1, 2026, assessing operational, cost, infrastructure, and readiness impacts of assigning any non-MH-139A rotary-wing aircraft to continuity of government and transport of United States government officials and security forces in the National Capital Region.” The lawmakers stressed that the report had to include “a comparison of procurement cost, cost per flight hour, infrastructure and aircraft modification requirements, and training and manpower impacts” and an assessment of the cost, schedule, and operational disruption associated with required upgrades to Joint Base Andrews facilities for each aircraft type.”

Separate questions have been raised in recent years about the utility of traditional CSAR helicopters in future operations, especially in the context of a high-end fight, such as one between the United States and China in the Pacific. Air Force officials openly talked about exploring alternatives for rescuing aircrew downed deep inside contested environments, but details about those plans remained limited.

At the same time, demand for traditional CSAR capabilities has certainly not gone away entirely. This was underscored by the operation to retrieve the crew of an F-15E Strike Eagle that went down inside Iran in April. HH-60Ws were part of the larger force package sent into Iranian airspace to help recover those aviators.

Wild footage from a USAF C-130 fueling two helicopters over Iran shared by telegram channels. The cars & the dialect are Iranian and from southwest. pic.twitter.com/K9cufOOY26

— Ramin Khanizadeh (@RKhanizadeh) April 3, 2026

Footage of Iranian police firing small arms at a pair of USAF HH-60Ws searching for the downed F-15E crew earlier today. pic.twitter.com/9SwhyhY1Aw

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) April 3, 2026

In the meantime, the Air Force’s UH-1Ns, a type the service first began operating in the early 1970s. are only getting older and harder to sustain, too. Three of the UH-1Ns currently assigned to 1st Helicopter Squadron saw combat during the Vietnam War. Just last week, one of the unit’s Twin Hueys made a precautionary landing in an open field in Maryland “after experiencing unusual mechanical noise” while on a training flight. This is hardly the first time such an incident has occurred.

There is a possibility that Congress could more directly intervene in the Air Force’s move to start flying HH-60Ws around Washington, D.C. With the expectation that UH-1Ns will remain in service at Andrews for another four years, there is time for the service’s own plans to evolve further.

With the activation of 5th Helicopter Squadron, the Air Force has now taken an important step toward an all-new helicopter force in the nation’s capital.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The post USAF Stands Up Unit To Fly HH-60W Helicopters In Doomsday Evacuation Role In Nation’s Capital appeared first on TWZ.

Two water-dropping helicopters have been down while operating against the huge wildfire in Psatha, western Attica, on Sunday, August 2, 2026. According to initial information the two helicopters of Bell type collided in the air. The collision in the air has been confirmed by an official announcement of the Fire Service, state broadcaster ERT reported […]

The post UPD3: Danish pilot, Greek translator killed in helicopters collision in Attica fires (VIDEO) appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.