The first time I ever flew in a helicopter, the bird was an old UH-1. I was a young company aidman, accompanying a squad of infantry in a field exercise. The bird's pilot was a veteran of Vietnam, which at that time had only been over for about 10 years. I remember sitting on the deck with my feet out above the skid as the bird flared to land in a small meadow, with the door gunner hanging right next to me. What I didn't know, being young and green as grass, was that those old Vietnam pilots didn't like to put a skid on the ground, for fear of tripping something that goes boom. So he brought the bird to a hover about four feet off the ground, and I stood, waiting for him to land - then the squad leader's boot propelled me out the door. I landed face-down in the grass, and before I could move, two of the grunts grabbed my arms and hauled me into the treeline. "C'mon, Doc, we gotta go," one of them laughed. (For non-veterans, grunts call any medical personnel "Doc," even if it's just an E-3 with a .45 and an aid bag.)
A few years after that, I got my first ride in one of the new UH-60 Black Hawks. It was bigger, faster, and cooler.
Now, Sikorski, the builder of the Black Hawk, is making them cooler still, with new armament kits to make the veteran birds capable of a lot more than just hauling grunts around.
Sikorsky announced on Apr. 15, 2026, its new Armed Black Hawk kits, on occasion of the Army Aviation Warfighting Summit in Nashville, Tennessee. The kit adds new stub wings on new or existing UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, allowing them to carry rockets, guided air-to-ground missiles and Gatling guns.
The design appears to be an evolution of the kit shown in a video in August 2024, with some differences clearly visible. At the time, the kit was undergoing a validation and live fire campaign on Yuma’s ranges, in Arizona.
Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, has highlighted the kit allows the proven UH-60 to be rapidly repurposed for air mobile assault, close support fire, medical evacuation, ISR, and tactical air-lift. The company says this would allow greater flexibility and eliminate the need for dedicated helicopter types.
The new kits will enable the newer marks of the Black Hawk to carry a variety of tools with which to revoke the birth certificates of bad guys:
The mounting points can be configured based on mission requirements, and so far Sikorsky has shown multiple configurations. While the new stub wings appear to possibly have a more prominent downward slope, possibly for enhanced aerodynamic performance, the mounting points appear to maintain the same ground clearance.
For instance, both the 2024 video and the new renderings show the Armed Black Hawk equipped with a quad-rack carrying four AGM-114 Hellfire laser-guided missiles and 19-round rocket pod for 70 mm rockets on the outermost hardpoints, while the inner hardpoints carried the forward-facing GAU-19 .50 caliber guns. Two M134 7.62 miniguns installed on window mounts completed the loadout.
That's a lot of hardware with which to ruin a terrorist goblin's whole day. Check it out:
We're extending the role of the Black Hawk into new mission sets including airmobile assault, close support, medical evacuation, ISR and tactical lift, in a single, battle-tested airframe.
— Sikorsky (@Sikorsky) April 15, 2026
Not only is this cool, but it might also even save the taxpayers a few bucks.
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Think about it: Instead of designing, sourcing, and building one, two, or three new helicopters for various missions, now the Army (and anyone else using the UH-60) can kit up for any of several different missions, repurposing the bird as necessary. That's a great idea. It makes an already versatile warbird even more versatile, and makes operations generally more efficient.
The United States military acquisition process has produced some real disasters in its day (I'm looking at you, Gama Goat), but this looks like Sikorski has come up with a winning proposition. Terrorist goblins, beware!
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