{"id":113114,"date":"2025-11-04T19:31:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T01:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=113114"},"modified":"2025-11-04T19:31:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T01:31:22","slug":"113114","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=113114","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Guardsman learns to fly autonomous Black Hawk in less than an hour.<\/a><\/p>\n

A U.S. Army National Guardsman with no previous aviation background learned to successfully maneuver Sikorsky\u2019s optionally piloted Black Hawk helicopter in less than an hour, according to a company release.<\/p>\n

In a training first,\u00a0<\/b>the Guardsman, using a handheld touchscreen tablet, controlled the Optionally Piloted Vehicle Black Hawk and planned its tasks during Exercise Northern Strike 25-2, a large, biannual multinational exercise sponsored by the National Guard Bureau that took place in Michigan this August. The exercise sees units practice a wide variety of offensive and defensive operations jointly in battle scenarios.<\/p>\n

The Guardsman, whose name has not been released,\u00a0<\/b>used the OPV Black Hawk to transport a 2,900-pound water buffalo slingload entirely by remote control, according to the Thursday release.<\/p>\n

Additional first-time demonstrations that took place during the exercise included delivering airborne troops to drop zones at different altitudes and a simulated medical evacuation, the release noted. The airborne drop exercise saw the helicopter perform a back-to-back action while controlled by the Guardsman operating the OPV from a Coast Guard vessel over 70 nautical miles away on Lake Huron. After ordering the helicopter to unload cargo, the soldier then used it to drop airborne troops.<\/p>\n

The OPV Black Hawk also completed a first-ever performance of six hookups and dropoffs of HIMARS launch tubes, according to Sikorsky\u2019s parent company Lockheed Martin.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn contested logistics situations, a Black Hawk operating as a large drone offers commanders greater resilience and flexibility to get resources to the point of need,\u201d said Rich Benton, vice president and general manager of Sikorsky,\u00a0in a release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although it retains the ability to be operated by a pilot, the OPV Black Hawk can be programmed to perform tasks remotely and optionally controlled as it carries out its assigned duties.<\/p>\n

Matrix technology, a system developed\u00a0in a joint program\u00a0<\/a>by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Sikorsky, allows the aircraft to transition from piloted to uncrewed,\u00a0according to DARPA.<\/a><\/p>\n

Sikorsky also utilizes Matrix technology in its completely autonomous take on the UH-60L Black Hawk<\/a>, nicknamed the \u201cU-HAWK,\u201d which it unveiled during the Association of the U.S. Army\u2019s annual convention this year in Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guardsman learns to fly autonomous Black Hawk in less than an hour. A U.S. Army National Guardsman with no previous aviation background learned to successfully maneuver Sikorsky\u2019s optionally piloted Black Hawk helicopter in less than an hour, according to a company release. In a training first,\u00a0the Guardsman, using a handheld touchscreen tablet, controlled the Optionally … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,87,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military","category-technology","category-they-made-a-movie-about-this"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113115,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113114\/revisions\/113115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}