The UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter is factory new, and one landed at McArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma on Tuesday afternoon. New York Army National Guard helicopter pilots, crews, and soldiers assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 142nd Aviation Regiment welcomed the arrival of the first of 20 of these new helicopters at their flight facilities at MacArthur and Albany International airports.

“We are finally being modernized to be on par with the rest of our active-duty brethren in assault,” said Captain Sal Garcia, a pilot within the regiment. “The oldest aircraft we have here was built in 1984, which is older than me. For us now getting a brand new aircraft off the factory line, it puts us on par for not only our war-fighting function but our civilian support functions. For us, we responded to Hurricane Sandy, Irene, [and] Maria doing fire-bucket training. And these aircraft now will now give us a better capability to assist New York State residents and also the United States war-fighting function overseas.”

Garcia said it is a big step forward in terms of safety and communication. Several more of these new Black Hawks will be arriving, but chief warrant officer Pete Haack explained that replacing several aircrafts simultaneously can be problematic.

“We can't dump them all in at once because what happens is it affects our maintenance flowchart,” Haack said.

Each of these new aircrafts costs about $21.3 million, which translates into more than $200 million for the aviation modernization program in the state. Robert Hansen, the senior instructor pilot in the battalion, remarked that the cost for these aircrafts is worth it.

“These 20 aircraft will provide significant improvements in the Army National Guard’s ability to safely execute missions both here in New York and around the world with improved lift capabilities, auto-pilot, ergonomic technology, and state-of-the-art digital cockpits,” Hansen said, continuing on to explain that the largest upgrade is the fully digital cockpit. “It will greatly enhance our ability to safely operate the aircraft in any environment. The situational awareness gained from digital moving maps, threat overlays, and aircraft systems pages will help decrease some of the workload we have while operating the aircraft.”

The UH-60M aircraft are manufactured at the Sikorsky manufacturing plant in Stratford, Conn. and complete the Army’s test flights prior to acceptance and delivery at Sikorsky’s post-production facility in Lakehurst, N.J. More than 2,000 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter variants are in service with the U.S. military.