Marines eyeing Sikorsky's no-cockpit Black Hawk

Colin Demarest

Dusk scene of a brown-gray Sikorsky helicopter on a dirt field with an front door and lowered loading ramp; a red tail light glows as city lights shimmer on the horizon. — The front of the U-Hawk. Screenshot: Lockheed Martin/via YouTube

The U.S. Marine Corps is "very interested" in the U-Hawk, a cockpitless, cargo-hauling variant of the Black Hawk helicopter, Sikorsky chief Richard Benton told Axios.

Why it matters: The military autonomy boom times continue — and are service-agnostic.

Catch up quick: Sikorsky, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, unveiled the U-Hawk at the Association of the U.S. Army conference last October. It's expected to fly for the first time this year.

"This has really been: 'Hey, we're going to build it because we think you need it,' and having it available will create the need or the demand," Benton said.
"And that's what we've been seeing."

Zoom in: The U-Hawk prototype is based on an older UH-60L, also known as Lima.

Designed to shuttle tons of materiel, including drones, rockets or ground robotics, its cockpit was traded for storage space and its nose now opens with clamshell doors and a ramp.
"You want to have metal-on-metal contact, or you don't want to put people in harm's way? It works for that," Benton said. "But it's quickly evolved to: 'I need to move stuff, and I need to move it en masse.'"

The intrigue: There are also plans to convert UH-60Ms, or Mikes. Physical conversion kits are also on the table.

The bottom line: "We don't have a version with the Marine gray on it yet," Benton said, "but I do anticipate there will be a Marine gray U-Hawk very soon."

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Marines eyeing Sikorsky's no-cockpit Black Hawk

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