The UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter has offered tremendous battlefield lift capacity over the last four decades.

Variations of this reliable helicopter serve as an armed escort, firefighter or medical evacuation platform or a means for delivering and extracting critical supplies or troops.

The four-blade, twin engine, medium-lift helicopter first took off in 1974, before entering service in 1979.

Since then, it has become one of the most desired medium-lift military helicopters worldwide.

The multi-role helicopter remains the backbone of the US Army fleet, with 2,135 UH-60s in service, according to its manufacturer.

As of April, roughly another 2,000 are in service with 35 different countries including Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

While the Black Hawk can perform a variety of missions, including troop transport, logistics resupply, medical evacuation and special operations support, it can be equipped with stub wings at the top of the fuselage to carry fuel tanks or various armaments via the External Stores Support System (ESSS).

The ESSS can carry 4,500kg of armament such as rockets, missiles and gun pods, including up to 16 Hellfire missiles, FIM-92 Stinger anti-air missiles and aerial mine delivery systems such as the Volcano and the M56 mine delivery system.

50 years of upgrades

Since the Black Hawk first took off 50 years ago, upgrades to the helicopter have improved its viability and situational awareness and equipped it to fly higher and carry more cargo.

It now has more powerful engines, digital avionics, composite rotor blades and a stronger airframe.

The latest variant, the UH-60V Black Hawk, was unveiled in 2021 to overhaul the aging UH-60A and L fleets.

While it looks nearly identical to previous variants, the UH-60V converts the analog cockpit of the UH-60L Black Hawk to a digital one, in order to better match the capabilities of the UH-60M.

The upgrades of the UH-60V include an upgraded digital glass cockpit, certified GPS RNAV database and advanced flight planning and mission capability.

It also comes with an open architecture system that allows for easy capability upgrades and plug-and-play mission systems.

The upgrades were designed to provide pilots with improved situational and navigational guidance awareness, integrated aircraft viability equipment and a reduced pilot workload.