Army Awards Sikorsky First UH-60M Black Hawk LRIP Contract

Defense Daily, June 7, 2005 by Ann Roosevelt

By Ann Roosevelt

The Army said yesterday it awarded a $245 million Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP) contract to Sikorsky [UTX] for 22 new UH-60M Black Hawk advanced utility helicopters.

In March, the Pentagon Defense Acquisition Board gave the Army approval to move forward with the LRIP program (Defense Daily, March 17).

The contract contains options for as many as eight additional UH-60M Black Hawks. The first deliveries are set for July 2006 to support the September 2006 start of Initial Operational Test and Evaluation.

The UH-60M will replace the UH-60A Black Hawk and will modernize the medium-lift helicopter fleet. Sikorsky has built Black Hawks for the Army since 1978.

A full rate production decision to authorize more than 1,200 UH-60M helicopters is scheduled for 2007.

The Army plans to equip a combat unit with the UH-60M in early 2008. The service acquisition objective is for 1,806 Black Hawks.

The Mike model Black Hawk will provide additional payload and range, advanced digital avionics, better handling and situational awareness, active vibration control, improved survivability and improved production.

The UH-60M will have a new composite spar wide-chord blade that will provide 500 pounds more lift than the UH-60L blade, Sikorsky said in a statement. A new General Electric [GE] T700-GE-701D engine adds more horsepower and will provide more lift during sling-load operations.

A new cockpit includes multi-function displays, flight management systems, modern flight control computers with a fully coupled autopilot, an integrated vehicle health management system with flight data and cockpit voice recorder, inertial navigation systems with embedded GPS, improved data modem and improved head up displays, the company said. The narrower cockpit instrument panel will also improve chin-window display.

During the UH-60M phase, Sikorsky will continue to build and deliver new UH-60L models.

This year, the Army decided to move to more modern helicopters as part of its revamped aviation plans in the wake of the cancellation of the Boeing [BA]- Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche helicopter. The service dropped plans to refurbish hundreds of aging Black Hawks in favor of ordering about 1,200 new aircraft, shifting nearly $3.5 billion in the FY '06 budget submission (Defense Daily, Jan. 11).

[Copyright 2005 Access Intelligence, LLC. All rights reserved.]

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