Putting Cockpits under Glass in Vertical Lift Military Aircraft
By Brooks McKinney, APR
When the U.S. Army wanted to upgrade the analog cockpit of its workhorse UH-60L Black Hawk helicopter to an all-digital glass version, the service turned to Northrop Grumman, a leader in digital integrated avionics for military aircraft.
The updated helo configuration, known as the UH-60V, was delivered to its first users, the Pennsylvania National Guard, in July 2021. Northrop Grumman has proposed a similar technology refresh for the Republic of Korea's (ROK) fleet of 36 UH-60P special ops helicopters.
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OpenLift Upgrades Lead to Joint Missions
Neel noted that an OpenLift-based upgrade for the ROK's UH-60Ps would make the special ops helicopters interoperable with Army helicopters, enabling joint missions between the U.S. and the ROK.
"The OpenLift architecture would allow the ROK to take advantage of the significant investments in capability and safety that the Army has already made in the architecture, potentially saving the ROK a lot of time and money," he explained. "OpenLift's open design would also allow us to easily bring any radios designed by ROK under the glass."
