Pilotless UH-60 Black Hawk Trialed In Recent U.S. Army Test
The pilotless UH-60 showed how the Army can perform autonomous resupply and that’s just a taste of how it could be used in the future.
BY
DAN PARSONS
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PUBLISHED OCT 20, 2022 5:53 PM
The Army recently flew Sikorsky’s optionally manned Black Hawk helicopter for an hour without pilots in the cockpit or direct human control, instead allowing the aircraft’s robotic brain to operate the helicopter during a tech demonstration in the Arizona desert.
As part of the more extensive Project Convergence experimentation program, the Optionally Piloted Vehicle, or OPV Black Hawk, and several other technologies were recently tested by Army Futures Command officials for inclusion in an eventual suite of systems that will autonomously resupply forward deployed troops around the clock in all weather.
Sikorsky and the Army have been conducting tests in support of developing a fully autonomous and/or remotely piloted UH-60 Black Hawk for years. The OPV Black Hawk initially carried safety pilots in the cockpit. In February, pilots were removed from the test helicopter to demonstrate that Sikorsky’s Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System, or ALIAS, can fly the helicopter without a human. Sikorsky released the below video on the occasion of the first "uninhabited flight."
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/armys-flies-pilotless-uh-60-black-hawk-for-an-hour-in-recent-test
