Converting Two Black Hawks

Converting Two Black Hawks: With the termination of its CSAR-X helicopter replacement program, the Air Force is seeking $90 million to buy two UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters to replace two HH-60G Pave Hawk combat search and rescue helicopters it has lost. These UH-60Ms are the latest configuration that the Army is procuring from Sikorsky in a long-line of Black Hawks. The Air Force funding request would cover the costs of modifying them for the personnel recovery mission, service spokeswoman Lt. Col. Karen Platt tells the Daily Report. She says the Air Force is completing an assessment of the current UH-60M model to determine the level of modification that would be required. The service has not determined the nomenclature it would use for these helicopters, she said. When asked whether this approach might also be an option to speed replacement of the Air Force's UH-1N helicopters, Platt said that the Air Force is “assessing all available options” which would meet the requirements and schedule that the service has defined for this successor aircraft, which is provisionally known as the Common Vertical Lift Support Platform (see below).

—Michael C. Sirak

5/21/2009

Verbatim

No Dog, Just Concern
"You know it concerns me that we keep hearing, 'Well this is something that the military doesn't want. They didn't ask for,' and all that. Then I go over there [Southwest Asia theater], and that's not their attitude at all. They have needs over there. Our lift capacity is in dire straights. … Now on the F-22—just yesterday we read about the T-50 … a fifth generation [fighter] that the Russians have. … I'm concerned about this. And I guess, you know, if we're down to 187 F-22s, and I think out of that only—what 120 are actually combat ready and used for combat. … I look at our committee—the Senate Armed Services Committee—and on these two vehicles I mentioned—the F-22 and the C-17—in Oklahoma. I don't have a dog in that fight. We don't have any parochial interest there. But it's the capability that we're going to need."
—Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), speaking during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Fiscal 2011 defense budget, Feb. 2, 2010.

Verbatim

Taming Expectations
"Every QDR disappoints those who look for radical reallocation of resources. The current fiscal environment is compounding that trend."
—Jim Thomas, vice president for studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefing reporters in Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, 2010.