“the nose is a good one, and it’s one that’s on a pretty accelerated timeline. Within the next, I would say, year or so, the nose will be available to be retrofitted or to be coming off the line,” Jason Wrigley, Sikorsky’s director of business development for Black Hawk, said.
Sikorsky at AUSA: a modular nose aimed at short timelines
Speaking at the Association of the U.S. Army’s main annual convention, Sikorsky representatives described a new, modular nose for the H-60 family that the company expects to begin offering “within the next, I would say, year or so.” Our Howard Altman spoke with company staff about the plan, which covers both new-production H-60s and retrofits to helicopters already in service. Sikorsky is now a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin.
Design priorities: more space, maintainability, and cooling
The design Sikorsky described is intended to provide roughly double the physical space of the standard nose on current-generation H-60s. The company 3D-printed noses as part of a test cycle to allow engineers, operators, and maintainers to physically interact with the shape and access points. A scale model on the show floor at AUSA highlights a layout that opens from the top; Sikorsky said accessibility and maintainability were major focuses of that exercise. Ensuring systems housed in the nose can be sufficiently cooled has been explicitly considered in the design process.
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See what we buildMission reconfiguration: sensors, communications, gunships, and more
Sikorsky framed the modular nose around open architecture and plug-and-play concepts. The extra forward real estate is intended to host a range of equipment — sensors and communications gear were named repeatedly — and the firm emphasized that whatever a mission requires could be fitted into the extended noses. Sikorsky illustrated potential uses that already exist on specialized H-60 variants: radars and dense sensor arrays on MH-60s, the instrument-packed nose of the HH-60W Jolly Green II, and long-nose gunship preparations. Examples cited include quick swaps between radars, electro-optical wide-area surveillance systems, laser designators, and defensive equipment, enabling operators to reconfigure helicopters between cargo-carrying, gunship, search-and-rescue, airborne drone control, and other missions.
Autonomy, an uncrewed H-60, and the Black Hawk 2070 vision
Sikorsky tied the modular nose into a broader Black Hawk 2070 strategy that also contemplates uprated engines and increased total payload capacity. The company said the nose could host components needed for higher tiers of autonomy — LIDAR, cameras, and other sensors noted as necessary for autonomous navigation and “copilot” systems designed to reduce crew workload. Sikorsky additionally described work on a fully uncrewed version of the H-60 and has considered converting older Black Hawks to that configuration as they retire from crewed roles. Wrigley stressed that the nose will “work directly with the new digital architecture,” reflecting the plan to marry physical modularity with updated onboard systems.
What this means for the U.S. Army, small operators, and maintainers
- U.S. Army — Sikorsky said the Army has discussed “targeted modernization,” preferring selective upgrades on a battalion or unit basis rather than upgrading every one of the roughly 1,000–1,500 Black Hawks in inventory. The modular nose fits into that targeted approach, allowing mission-specific upgrades where commanders decide they are needed.
- Small H-60 fleet operators — The company argued that a common pool of modular noses could give smaller fleets multi-mission capability without equipping every airframe with permanent, mission-specific hardware, potentially yielding sustainment and logistics efficiencies.
- Maintainers and engineers — Early 3D-printed prototypes were used so engineers and maintainers could confirm access and reachability; Sikorsky has incorporated operator and maintainer feedback into iterative design cycles and is documenting retrofit procedures as part of the development process.
There remain practical questions Sikorsky acknowledges are still in work. The company said it is too early to specify exactly how modular noses would be swapped in the field or how long a changeover would take; part of the ongoing design work includes writing retrofit documentation, and Sikorsky said it does not view the retrofit as “very invasive.” If the timeline holds, operators could have a new option on the production line and an upgrade path for in-service H-60s within about a year — a near-term structural change intended to expand the helicopter’s mission envelope while fitting into a broader Black Hawk 2070 modernization framework.
