How Many Black Hawk Helicopters Does The US Have?

LQThe Black Hawk helicopter (or UH-60) was developed by Sikorsky as a replacement for the aging Bell UH-1 Iroquois and has been in service since 1979. Over the model's long life, more than 5,000 Black Hawks have been built and sold to 36 nations, and these helicopters have racked up over 15 million flight hours. As a testament to the model, 5 million of those hours have come in active combat. 

 Sikorsky Aircraft was  founded in 1925 and purchased by Lockheed Martin in 2015, which now builds and sells the the very special and valued Black Hawk for the U.S. military. The US currently has 2,276 Black Hawk helicopters on active duty, accounting for more than 3/4 of its combat helicopter fleet. With such a long lifespan, many different iterations of the Black Hawk have been developed, including S-70 commercial Black Hawks and the Navy's SH-60 Sea Hawk. This versatility and the fact that it was purpose-built from the beginning as a combat machine makes the Black Hawk highly valuable to military forces.

It's not one of the fastest military helicopters, but the Black Hawk is powered by a pair of GE T700 turbine engines that enables a top speed of about 187 mph.That only applies to the commercial S-70 model, though; the UH-60 military variants max out at between 161 and 178 mph. The Black Hawk can carry up to 9,000 pounds and seat 12 fully geared-up troops. It has also been adapted for fire and emergency use, search-and-rescue missions, and maritime patrol. 

The attack-spec Black Hawk can carry up to 16 Hellfire missiles and there are two weapons stations on each wing which support .50-caliber guns, 19-shot Hydra rocket pods, or air-to-ground missiles. Adding to the firepower are 7.62mm mini-guns on the cabin doors and/or windows. It's this versatility which makes the Black Hawk valuable enough to the U.S. Department of Defense to justify buying and operating more than 2,000 of them. However, plans are already in place for the long-range MV-75 to replace some of America's Black Hawk helicopters, with prototypes of the new model recently being delivered to the U.S. Army.