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The US military is ordering new UH-60M Black Hawk utility helicopters at a rapid clip, but it still has a large legacy fleet of UH-60Ls. Upgrading UH-60L performance etc. isn’t cost-effective, but upgrading their avionics to a common standard will save money by cutting down on training, removing dependence on out-of-production parts, etc. As a bonus, new digital technologies take up less space, weigh less, and draw less power. Northrop Grumman has been picked for the program.
The US Army intends to upgrade 700 – 900 UH-60Ls this way, turning them into UH-60Vs with a pilot interface that’s essentially identical to the UH-60M. Northrop Grumman says that the new avionics are aligned with the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE), which began as a US NAVAIR standard for avionics interoperability and software portability, but has spread through the Pentagon as intended. As part of that commitment, Northrop Grumman is providing full, unlimited government purpose rights to technical data and software. Sources: NGC, “Northrop Grumman Selected to Modernize Black Hawk Cockpit for US Army”.
