A pair of the Military’s next-generation rotary-wing engines had been delivered to Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky forward of integration into the UH-60M Black Hawk utility helicopter, the corporate introduced.The supply indicators, “a brand new part of Black Hawk helicopter modernization efforts,” the corporate stated in a June 27 assertion.The Improved Turbine Engine Program engine, developed by Normal Electrical’s aerospace division, has skilled a slew of delays associated to expertise improvement and provide chain woes. A 12 months in the past, the Military predicted an almost two-year delay getting the T901 engine into the UH-60.The Black Hawk would be the first to obtain the potential, and the AH-64 Apache assault helicopter will observe.The T901 engine will exchange the Nineteen Seventies-era T700 and supply plane with a 50% energy improve to revive efficiency. It’s 25% improved gasoline consumption reduces vitality utilization and carbon emissions. The engine can be anticipated to have extra sturdy parts, which is able to decrease life-cycle prices.Whereas the Military stays dedicated to the ITEP engine, earlier this 12 months it determined to maintain this system in improvement longer, pushing again plans for procurement and fielding. The service doesn’t but have a brand new plan for when fielding will happen.The Military had deliberate to make use of the ITEP engine in its Future Assault Reconnaissance Plane, or FARA, however canceled the helicopter program this 12 months after two competing business groups — Bell and Sikorsky — acquired the engine for the prototypes they had been constructing.Sikorsky had taken benefit of fiscal 2024 FARA program funding earlier than the Military formally closed this system on the finish of the 12 months to run exams of the ITEP within the prototype, forward of integrating the engine into the UH-60, as a way to drive down threat, Paul Lemmo, Sikorsky’s president, stated earlier this 12 months. On April 10, the corporate carried out its first floor run of the ITEP engine within the FARA prototype, Lemmo added.Now that Sikorsky has the ITEP engines for Black Hawk integration, it is going to conduct a match examine with the engine in one of many two modified UH-60s and set up one within the helicopter for precise floor runs and check flights, Lemmo stated. That course of will take roughly a month.Sikorsky then plans to take about six months to combine the engine and conduct floor runs previous to a primary flight, he famous.The corporate stated it plans to put in the second engine into one other UH-60 check plane as a way to speed up the check program.Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist overlaying land warfare for Protection Information. She has additionally labored for Politico and Inside Protection. She holds a Grasp of Science diploma in journalism from Boston College and a Bachelor of Arts diploma from Kenyon School.