MH-60 Black Hawk (special operations)
The Night Stalkers' Black Hawks — refuelling probes, terrain-following radar and gunship wings · In service early 1980s (MH-60A) · MH-60M delivered from 2009
The US Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (the "Night Stalkers") has flown its own Black Hawks since the early 1980s. The first, the MH-60A, were 30 UH-60As fitted with extra avionics, a night-vision-compatible cockpit, FLIR, M134 door guns and internal auxiliary fuel tanks. The interim MH-60L followed in the late 1980s on the UH-60L airframe; 37 were built, and some later received in-flight refuelling probes.
The MH-60K, first ordered in 1988, was purpose-designed for the regiment: an in-flight refuelling probe, an integrated glass cockpit, AN/APQ-174B terrain-following radar and improved defensive systems. Its successor, the MH-60M, is based on the UH-60M with a Rockwell Collins CAAS cockpit, AN/APQ-187 Silent Knight radar and more powerful engines; Sikorsky delivered the first in 2009, and the whole special-operations fleet was to be brought to M standard.
Both the K and the M can be set up as troop-carrying assault helicopters or as the Direct Action Penetrator (DAP), a gunship with stub wings carrying a 30 mm M230 cannon, Hydra rockets, Hellfire missiles and miniguns. MH-60Ls of the regiment flew in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu.
