Lockheed Martin secured contracts to deliver MH-60R Seahawks to the Royal Australian Navy and H-60M Black Hawks to the US Army, reinforcing long-standing aviation partnerships
The US Navy awarded Lockheed Martin a firm-fixed-price contract to produce 12 additional Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk helicopters for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), procured via the US Government’s Foreign Military Sales (FMS) agreement. Around the same period, the US government and Sikorsky also signed a five-year “Multi-Year X” contract for a baseline of 120 H-60M Black Hawk helicopters—the 10th multiple-year contract between Sikorsky and the US government for H-60 variants.
The 12 new MH-60R aircraft, part of Australia’s Project SEA 9100 Phase 1, were set to create a common fleet of maritime helicopters supporting all of the RAN’s air-capable platforms, adding a third ‘Romeo’ squadron to its Fleet Air Arm. Lockheed Martin planned to deliver all 12 between mid-2025 and mid-2026. The RAN had been the first international navy to select the MH-60R, acquiring 24 aircraft from 2013 to 2016, with its 725 and 816 squadrons at Nowra accumulating more than 30,000 flight hours embarked on frigates, destroyers, and supply ships.
“The ‘Romeo’ Seahawk helicopter instills confidence in navies worldwide for its high operational availability in the harsh maritime environment,” said Hamid Salim, vice president of Sikorsky Maritime & Mission Systems, in a Lockheed Martin news release. Rear Adm. Peter Quinn, Head Navy Capability for the RAN, highlighted the aircraft’s versatility across a wide range of missions as a key factor in the decision to make the additional investment.
As the US Navy’s next-generation submarine hunter and anti-surface warfare helicopter, the MH-60R Seahawk serves as the cornerstone of the US Navy’s Helicopter Concept of Operations, replacing the legacy SH-60B and SH-60F aircraft. Its primary missions are anti-submarine and surface warfare, with secondary roles including search and rescue, medical evacuation, electromagnetic warfare, and logistics support, among others. Sikorsky Aircraft Australia Limited in Nowra, New South Wales, provides depot-level maintenance and logistics support for Australia’s MH-60R fleet.
On the Army side, the “Multi-Year X” Black Hawk contract covered UH-60M and HH-60M MEDEVAC variants, with options to reach a total of 255 aircraft for the US Army and FMS customers, with deliveries scheduled from July 2022 through 2027. The contract value for expected deliveries was approximately $2.3 billion, with a potential value of up to $4.4 billion should all options be exercised. With more than 2,100 H-60 variants already in the US Army’s inventory, the Black Hawk remained the backbone of Army Aviation. As the Army continued developing its Future Vertical Lift (FVL) capabilities, it planned to operate the H-60M for several more decades alongside the future fleet.
“This Multi-Year agreement allows the Army to meet current and future capability needs through upgrades, remanufacturing, replacement, and technology insertions,” said Col. Calvin Lane, the Utility Helicopters project manager. Nathalie Previte, vice president of Sikorsky’s Army and Air Force programs, emphasized the company’s ongoing investments in the Black Hawk platform—from sustainment to digital transformation—aligned with the Army’s technology roadmap and the FVL ecosystem.
Photos by the Royal Australian Navy and Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company
