UH-60V Black Hawk meets all-weather airworthiness standards

By Evan Ochsner / April 19, 2022 at 12:14 PM

An upgraded Black Hawk helicopter achieved an all-weather airworthiness certification, Northrop Grumman, which is providing an upgraded cockpit for the aircraft, announced Monday.

The Army issued an Instrument Flight Rules Airworthiness Release to the UH-60V, which will allow pilots to fly the Black Hawk under all weather conditions.

The UH-60V includes an upgraded cockpit of the UH-60L enabled by Northrop Grumman’s OpenLift technology, which provides a “fully open, digital and integrated avionics package,” according to the announcement.

“Achieving IFR airworthiness is a major milestone for the UH-60V with OpenLift,” Lindsay McEwen, Northrop Grumman's vice president for navigation, targeting and survivability said in the announcement. “Aircrews can now experience the unique capabilities of this open-architecture aircraft under all conditions.”

The company says its Open Lift platform has also been flight demonstrated on the AH-64E Apache and can be used on other legacy and Future Vertical Lift aircraft.

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