Langenlebarn: Austrian Army takes over upgraded “Black Hawk”
On Tuesday, the Austrian Armed Forces received the third retrofitted S-70 "Black Hawk" transport helicopter from Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner (ÖVP) at Brumowski Air Base. "I am pleased that we have succeeded in giving new impetus to this necessary modernization of our 'Black Hawk' helicopters. Three 'Black Hawks' have now been converted and are available in Austria. Two more were shipped to the USA after the contract was adjusted, where the series conversion is being carried out by the contractor. The remaining four are being modified at Fliegerwerft 1 in Austria. With the purchase of three more 'Black Hawks', we should then have all twelve available in Austria by 2025, using the latest technology," said the government member. On June 1, 2017, the contract was signed with the US company "ACE Aeronautics", whose offer included a completely new cockpit in addition to the replacement of individual technical components with limited usability, and nevertheless emerged as the best bidder from the competition. With this modification, the entire system, i.e. the entire cockpit, is replaced instead of individual avionics systems. Systems were also replaced that would only have needed to be replaced in the coming years. This means that no further upgrades are necessary for a long period of time. Due to this measure, it is expected that the availability and selective component replacement will be associated with significantly lower technical and therefore financial expenditure in the future. The new system is based on the integrated G5000H cockpit from Garmin, which meets all requirements for the use of airspace according to visual and instrument flight rules, in particular GPS-based approach procedures, now and in the future.