Sikorsky’s newest helicopter is an unmanned version of its UH-60L Black Hawk, stripped of its cockpit to carry more cargo and keep aircrew out of harm’s way. Company officials hope the U.S. and other militaries see the remotely piloted U-HAWK as a useful new variant of the venerable airframe.
The cockpit is replaced by clamshell doors and a ramp, and the pilots with the company’s MATRIX autonomous technology, enabling a ground operator to fly the aircraft with a tablet.
“We can take those highly trained crews and very valuable crews and focus them on those critical missions that are in direct support of soldiers, seamen, airmen, and then kind of the mundane or really dangerous or dull task we can assign to the autonomous capabilities,” said
Erskine “Ramsey” Bentley, director of strategy and business development for Sikorsky Advanced Programs, which debuted the yet-to-be-flown aircraft on Monday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s conference in Washington, D.C.
The announcement, and push to keep the helicopter relevant, follows Army Chief of Staff Randy George’s congressional testimony that the service may retire its aging UH-60L, introduced in 1989. In 2022, the Army chose Textron’s Bell V-280 to potentially replace thousands of the Army’s workhorse helicopters.
Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin subsidiary, has been testing its MATRIX system on unmanned Black Hawk helicopters for at least a decade. Company representatives said they’ve wanted to move fast on U-HAWK, getting an aircraft ready to debut at the show in just 10 months. Flight testing is set to begin within the first half of 2026.
“We have gone from concept to design to actually reworking the aircraft and rebuilding the aircraft in under a year,” Bentley said. “We plan to be turning rotors this spring, and we’re looking at first flight in the second quarter of the year.”
Bentley said by building U-HAWK on the older UH-60L the company can cut down on costs as well as maintenance for the Army.
“We’re really looking at different ways to extend the life of the aircraft,” Bentley said. “We really didn’t do a lot of changes … You’re talking about the same transmissions, same engines, same rotor blades, etc. It’s not like we’re introducing a new aircraft and a new platform into the Army inventory.”
By losing the cockpit and crew chief stations, the U-HAWK can be equipped for a variety of cargo such as four Joint Modular Intermodal Containers or a HIMARS pod of six rockets. Uncrewed ground vehicles, such as the robotic HDT Hunter Wolf can be driven on and off the ramp of the aircraft. Company officials also said a munitions quiver can be secured to the cabin of the helicopter to fire armed missiles or sensors.
Company representatives have said there’s not a specific customer or contract in mind for the U-HAWK.
The U-HAWK announcement comes one year after the company received a $6 million award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to install its MATRIX flight autonomy system on the Army’s UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter. That same technology was placed on all five drone designs for DARPA’s shipboard unmanned aerial systems demonstrations.
Sikorsky isn’t the only company pursuing autonomous flight on Black Hawks. In April, the Army selected Near Earth Autonomy and Honeywell to lead a $15 million program to equip UH-60Ls for unmanned logistics missions.
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