Black Hawk helicopters will be able to quickly swap roles thanks to new kit

Sikorsky just unveiled its new Armed Black Hawk helicopter kits that can be installed on any existing UH-60M Black Hawk to carry a huge variety of weapons and other hardware, allowing one helicopter to fill the roles of several different purpose-built platforms in service today.

The UH-60 Black Hawk has been in service for nearly 50 years, and despite the U.S. Army working to develop its tilt-rotor replacement, the newly named MV-75 Cheyenne II, the incredibly tough Black Hawk will keep flying for decades to come.

And a big reason for that is how ubiquitous the Black Hawk and its many variants have become.

Today, there are some 2,300 of these helicopters operated by the U.S. military, each in one of eight different potential configurations, ranging from the standard UH-60M air assault and cargo lift helicopters to special operations specific Direct Action Penetrators, to combat search and rescue Jolly Green IIs, and even anti-submarine warfare MH-60R Romeos.

With the ability to carry up to 11 troops or 9,000 pounds of external cargo, a top speed of 183 miles per hour, and a combat radius of 370 miles, these tough and reliable rotorcraft have become a staple of not just the American military, but of more than 30 other militaries around the world.

However, up until now, customers usually had to choose which specific Black Hawk variant they needed for the operations they had in mind, so the helicopter could be delivered with all the necessary additional hardware required for that mission set. And that is exactly what the new Armed Black Hawk helicopter kit aims to address.

In effect, these kits add stub wings to the helicopter that provide mounting points for a wide variety of gear ranging from precision-guided missiles to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance gear.

As a result, Sikorsky says you can take one helicopter and have it fill air mobile assault, close support fire, medical evacuation, ISR, and tactical air-lift roles simply by swapping out the gear on those pylons. The process of swapping out the gear takes about three hours, according to the company.

The recently named MV-75 is expected to reach service by 2030. Yet, it will be decades before it can completely replace America’s massive Black Hawk fleet.

Meanwhile, the Army will continue to take deliveries on new Black Hawks through, at least, 2027 as MV-75 production starts to spin up.

Feature Image: A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter from the 227th Assault Helicopter Battalion conducts sling load operations with soldiers from the 66th Combat Engineer Company – Armored (CEC-A), 40th Engineer Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, assigned to Joint Task Force-Southern Border, near El Centro, Calif., March 3, 2026. (Detartment of War photo by 1st Lt. Sydnie Rissel)

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