Greece confirms intent to purchase 35 UH-60Ms from
Sikorsky
By Ryan Finnerty5
April 2024
Greece has confirmed its intention to purchase 35
Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk military helicopters to help modernise the Hellenic
Army.
Athens on 5 April
signed a letter of offer and acceptance, making the long-proposed sale
official.
The rotorcraft
will be US-made Black Hawks procured through the Pentagon’s foreign military
sales (FMS) system, not S-70 direct-commercial-sales variants, which Sikorsky
subsidiary PZL Mielec assembles in Poland.
“The latest
generation UH-60M Black Hawk will support the Hellenic Ministry of Defense’s
ongoing modernisation and will serve as a dependable helicopter for vital national
and allied security missions,” says Sikorsky president Paul Lemmo.
Source: US Army
The Hellenic Army
plans to obtain 35 UH-60s to succeed the current fleet of legacy Bell UH-1s
Arms regulators in
Washington had already approved the
Greek purchase request for UH-60s, signing off on 35 aircraft in December. The
package is valued at $1.95 billion.
“The proposed sale
will replace Greece’s current multi-role helicopter fleet with a more reliable
and proven system that will allow Greece to maintain the appropriate level of
readiness to conduct combined operations,” the US state department said at the
time.
In October, Sikorsky revealed Greece had submitted a formal FMS request to obtain as many as 49 UH-60s. It is not clear why that number was reduced during the regulatory approval process.
The Hellenic Army
currently operates 64 Bell UH-1s for utility lift missions.
That service now
joins the Hellenic Navy as a Sikorsky operator. In March, the navy took
delivery of three new-build Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawks, with four more aircraft
expected in 2025.
The navy also
operates 11 S-70s, according to Cirium data. Both aircraft are derived from the
UH-60 airframe.
Sikorsky says
Greece will benefit from the operational and sustainment advantages of fleet
commonality with an all-Black Hawk fleet. It will likely be several years
before those benefits are realised, however.
Speaking at the
Association of the US Army conference in Washington last October, Lemmo said
there is approximately a three-year wait for new Black Hawks between finalised
orders and first deliveries.
“It depends on the
specialisation that they want in the aircraft. Depending on the aircraft, sometimes
we can accelerate that a little bit more.”
Standard model
UH-60s are assembled at Sikorsky’s flagship plant in Stratford, Connecticut. Specialised
modifications for FMS customers are performed at a separate facility south of
Syracuse, New York.
Greece in January received approval from Washington to buy as many as
40 F-35 stealth fighters from Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky’s parent company.
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