UH-60 Black Hawk: The Abbottabad Stealth Tail and a 30-Minute Dry Gearbox

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During the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a helicopter clipped the compound wall and crash landed. The team destroyed it, but a surviving tail section revealed radar-evading surfaces and extra rotor blades on what was underneath a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk. The helicopter grew out of Vietnam, where the Bell UH-1 Huey proved vulnerable to ground fire. The Army's UTTAS program demanded twin General Electric T700 engines, a modular design, ballistically tolerant fuel tanks that seal bullet holes, crashworthy armored seats, a fuselage that fit inside a C-130 Hercules and a main transmission able to run without oil for up to 30 minutes. The UH-60A entered service in 1979, carrying a crew of four and 11 equipped troops.

Added gear soon left the A model struggling to lift its payloads, leading to the UH-60L in 1989, with upgraded engines and a 9,000-pound sling load, and the UH-60M in 2006, with a digital glass cockpit and wide-chord rotor blades. The Army later canceled a V model upgrade in favor of buying new M models. Between 1981 and 1987, five Black Hawks crashed fatally after radio towers induced false signals in unshielded flight control wiring, and in 1994 U.S. Air Force F-15s misidentified two Army Black Hawks over northern Iraq as Mi-24 Hinds and shot them down, killing 26. The Black Hawk flew in Grenada, Panama, the 1991 Gulf War's largest air assault in Army history and the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu. More than 5,000 have been built, and 35 countries operate it.

• Variants include the VH-60N White Hawk flown as Marine One and the HH-60M and HH-60W medical and rescue models.
• The MH-60L Direct Action Penetrator of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment carries no troops, only 30mm chain guns, rockets and Hellfire missiles on stub wings.
• Australia retired its troubled MRH-90 Taipan fleet early and in 2021 ordered 40 new UH-60M Black Hawks.
• Ukraine's intelligence directorate flies Black Hawks crowdfunded by Czech supporters, while the Taliban operate ones left behind by the Afghan Air Force.
• Sikorsky's optionally piloted Black Hawk uses MATRIX software to fly cargo missions autonomously, and its speed bag system drops supplies from 100 feet at 20 knots.