US Army Black Hawk multi-year contract
Three Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk related contracts were announced end-March 2021. Following some discussions, with excellent input from Ian Carroll, we can present the following overview of the UH-60 Mike purchase programme.
The first announcement was dated 22 March 2021, and it stated that Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. at Stratford (CT) was awarded a USD30,959,224 modification (P00181) to contract W58RGZ-17-C-0009. For this amount nine UH-60M and fifteen HH-60M helicopters are ordered using FY21 funds, which should be delivered by 30 June 2023.
Two days later, another modification to the same contract (P00126) was published. This one was valued at USD99,886,365, and is part of the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme in support of the Saudi Arabian National Guard. In total twenty-five modified UH-60Ms are purchased for this value. Again, FY21 funds are used, and the completion date is 31 October 2024.
The third announcement followed on 25 March 2021. Again, the same (multi-year) contract was mentioned, and the modification (P00180) was valued at USD94,278,532. This time an option was exercised for six HH-60M helicopters under year 5 of the contract, Lot 45. Completion date 31 July 2022 was also mentioned.
The multi-year contracts offer great value to the US tax payers since better terms can be negotiated with the suppliers. But given the fact that multiple amendments are often made, it is quite hard to keep track of the exact number of aircraft or helicopters which are actually purchased. These changes include specification adjustments, FMS sales, Overseas Contingency Operations (war losses) and funds re-allocated from the Black Hawk Exchange and Sales Team (BEST, UH-60A disposals).
With great help from Ian Carroll, we took a deeper look into Contract W58RGZ-17-C-0009 and US Army UH-60M variant purchases.
On 22 June 2017, Sikorsky was awarded a 5-years Multi-Year Procurement (MYP) contract for a total value of over USD5,6 billion (USD568,627,264,000 to be exact) for production and delivery of Black Hawk helicopters.
This was the fourth MYP contract for this helicopter type. Not a single helicopter was actually purchased when this contract was signed. Actual orders would follow throughout the following years via contract modifications. But since this concerns a MYP contract, the individual aircraft contracts are not always announced.
The US Army planned a fleet of 1,375 HH-60M/UH-60M helicopters. Some of the UH-60Ms were further modified to MH-60M standard for usage by the famous 160th SOAR Nightstalkers.
The following numbers are confirmed per fiscal year as actually ordered:
This brings the total number of M-version Black Hawks ordered to 1,117. The FY2021 Draft Budget has USD830,183 million reserved for the purchase of 36 helicopters (21 UH-60M and 15 HH-60M). But during the annual reviews between the Senate and Congress regarding the defence spending, the final FY21 Enacted Budget has funds reserved for 42 Black Hawks.
This finally brings us to the announcement from 22 March 2021. It is likely, but not confirmed, that this is a contract for advance procurement of FY2022 aircraft. Ian Carroll pointed out to us that the draft FY2021 budget included 24 Black Hawks planned for FY2022. This would fit the number mentioned in modification P00180.
Photos: Erik-Jan Engelen