Many Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters have seen years of reliable service and have many more flight hours remaining. This was the case for this project. XP Services replaced legacy systems in the UH-60 with digital avionics. Because of the implementation and certification of a 3 and 4-Axis glass cockpit solution, these helicopters now had the modern navigational and flight capabilities not even integrated into newly manufactured Black Hawks.

The U.S. Air Force required pilot training on Black Hawk helicopters equipped with legacy systems. In addition, these pilots had to learn how to train other pilots to use these same aircraft in Afghanistan. Our ‘Train the Trainer’ program prepared them with the flight skills needed to handle these aircraft in very demanding and ever changing flight environments found in Afghanistan as well as train other pilots to be able to do the same.

From patrolling borders to special military operations, the versatile IOMAX Archangel provides precision capabilities needed for these situations. To ensure it performed as engineered against fixed and moving targets, over land and at sea, the experimental test pilots at XP Services put it to the test. They performed everything from flight handling and avionics capability to overall airworthiness and safety testing that ultimately resulted in IOMAX certification.

The United States Marine Corps (USMC) is a premier aviation fighting force with a wide range of combat, supply and transport capabilities. To ensure flight readiness while training new helicopter pilots, the USMC turned to the mission proven pilots at XP Services to act as a realistic opposition force. This helped give flight cadre the situational readiness required to effectively perform in both defensive and offensive situations.

The Black Hawk helicopter has the proven military design for meeting the demands and structural stress of aerial firefighting. XP Service took these military Black Hawks, that had been reconfigured for firefighting services, and tested flight safety and handling under the demands of transporting high-payload water tanks. Through this flight testing process, these helicopters met the mission effectiveness and safety requirements for certification.

For any mission challenge there is an XP Services solution. For one government, their Black Hawk helicopters required fabrication of a Motorcycle Transport System for rapid deployment. And they also needed rapid delivery of this solution. Within 4 short months, our fabricators, engineers and pilots went from ideation, prototype development and testing to final delivery of this proprietary launching platform.