Sikorsky’s UH-60MX Black Hawk Helicopter Brings Complete Autonomy to Real World Army Trials

Sikorsky has completed flight testing and handed the first UH-60MX Black Hawk over to the US Army this week. The aircraft has landed at Fort Eustis, Virginia, where the Combat Capabilities Development Command will put it through its paces. From here the real testing begins, with the helicopter expected to demonstrate just how much it can handle on its own.

This project has been in the works for nearly a decade. Sikorsky partnered with DARPA through the ALIAS program to develop a kit that adds advanced autonomous flight control to existing helicopters, and the UH-60MX is the result of that work, built on the familiar UH-60A airframe that the Army knows well. In 2025 the original mechanical flight controls were replaced with fly-by-wire electronics, giving the MATRIX autonomy system the ability to step in and take over whenever the mission calls for it.

MATRIX essentially acts as the helicopter’s brain, with onboard sensors continuously scanning the surrounding environment and feeding data into the system, which then handles flight path planning, landing zone selection, and obstacle avoidance in real time. Pilots on board see their workload drop significantly as the routine tasks are handled automatically, and ground operators can direct the aircraft from a tablet. Soldiers with no flight experience have been learning to manage basic missions in around an hour of practice time.

The same autonomy package has already been tested across the UH-60A, UH-60L, and UH-60M variants, accumulating hundreds of flight hours on a Sikorsky owned test aircraft and proving itself reliable across a wide range of conditions. A standout run in 2022 saw the helicopter complete its own pre-flight checks, take off, fly a full route autonomously, and land successfully, all while handling simulated equipment failures along the way.

Now in the US Army’s hands, the focus shifts to real world evaluation. Testing will push the helicopter through demanding environments to see how it performs under pressure, how smoothly it transitions between crewed and autonomous modes, and how effectively the ground stations handle remote oversight. All of it feeds into the Strategic Autonomy Flight Enabler initiative, which is working toward a single kit that can be deployed across the entire Black Hawk fleet and carried forward into future designs.

Helicopters will soon be able to support troops in areas too dangerous to send a crew into or too remote for regular human oversight, and missions can be flown in low visibility conditions or contested airspace without putting soldiers at risk. The open architecture of MATRIX also means new sensors and software can be added down the line without tearing the whole system apart and starting over.
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