Black Hawks prove boon for company

Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn.

America’s wars since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have been a boon for the maker of Black Hawk helicopters, a workhorse the U.S. military has relied on heavily to strike targets and ferry troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sales at Stratford, Conn.-based Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. have more than doubled to $6.7 billion since 2005, boosting the economy of a state that has historically had broad defense interests. George Washington nicknamed Connecticut the Provision State during the Revolutionary War for supplying food and cannons to his soldiers.

Since 2001, the Black Hawk’s ability to handle several jobs — such as ferrying soldiers and hunting down enemy troops — has made it one of the military’s primary tools in unfamiliar countries where it must cover large expanses of desert and rugged mountains. The two wars have marked the longest-ever campaigns for the helicopter, which has evolved with technological advances to keep sand out of the engine and keep pace with the military’s demands.

With about 400 Black Hawk variants at work at any time, the helicopters are among the most heavily used fleet of aircraft in the U.S. Armed Forces, said Tim Healy, director of U.S. Air Force business development at Sikorsky.

“It’s been in incredibly high demand for a very, very long time.”

The Black Hawk, in the U.S. Army inventory since the late 1970s, saw its first combat in Grenada in 1983 and has been in continuous combat deployments since Operation Desert Storm in 1991. It is perhaps best known because of the book and movie “Black Hawk Down,” about the 1993 battle in Somalia where two helicopters were shot down, killing 18 soldiers.

Nothing compares with the action it’s seen since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 and Iraq 17 months later.

The Black Hawk is the only military helicopter with a dual role in fighting conventional battles and facing down shadowy enemies, said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst at Teal Group in Arlington, Va. It moves soldiers to and from battles or to medical care and finds and attacks enemy troops.