US Congress has been notified of the possible sale of six Sikorsky UH-60Ls to Brazil, taking potential foreign military sales of Black Hawks and Naval Hawks announced over the past 12 months close to 100 aircraft.
"We are seeing unprecedented growth in FMS requests for Black Hawks, a lot of them from the Middle East but also from Latin America," says Sikorsky president Jeff Pino. "There is also FMS interest in the new Naval Hawk, the Sierra."
Although there is no guarantee that all the FMS requests will turn into sales, three already have: 15 UH-60Ls for Colombia, nine UH-60Ms for Bahrain, and two MH-60Ss for the Royal Thai Navy. The latter two nations are launch export customers for the M and S models.
To cope with expected demand, Sikorsky has standarised production at its Stratford, Connecticut plant on the UH-60M and MH-60S/R for the US military and outsourced production of the UH-60L and customisation of helicopters for international customers. The company's new Polish subsidiary, PZL-Mielec, has been approved to begin building UH-60M cabins, says Pino.
PZL will also assemble the International Black Hawk variant, which will replace the UH-60L for export customers, with deliveries beginning in 2010-11, says Pino, adding: "We are in the final stages of defining the configuration."
Sikorsky has also completed the critical design review of the Armed Battle Hawk kit that will fit any Black Hawk "and give it the same capability as a [Boeing AH-64] Apache, without the Longbow radar", says Pino. Being developed with Israel's Elbit Systems, the kit includes a turreted gun, rockets, AGM-114 Hellfire "and a second missile". Firing trails are planned for mid-2008.
Source: Flight International
