New Army Black Hawk succeeds in combat: "The Army's new high-tech UH-60 Black Hawk M-model helicopter -- equipped with a stronger engine, a digital cockpit and composite rotor blades -- performed exceptionally well in Afghanistan during its first major combat deployment, according to a recently completed After Action Review at Fort Campbell, Ky., service officials said.
'The M-model Black Hawks were in Afghanistan for 12 months. The aircraft performed exceptionally well,' said Lt. Col. Jerry Davis, product manager for UH-60 Modernization. 'We got great reaction from pilots. They experienced a higher than average operational readiness rate with those aircraft in theater and they loved the technologies on-board.'
The year-long deployment was the first for the M-model Black Hawks, which entered full-rate production in June, 2007. So far, 154 M-models have been delivered, Davis said.
The M-model Black Hawk's digital cockpit display made a large difference with pilots, the AAR found.
'We went from analogue type displays on the dash to multifunction digital displays. Now, the aircraft has a moving map capability with digital situational awareness on the dash integrated with the flight plan. It gave pilots a greater awareness of where their units were, where their supportive units were and where the enemy locations were,' Davis said. 'It has an integrated Blue Force Tracker which automatically displays situational awareness on the moving map display, giving greater awareness to the pilot conducting the missions.'"
