US Army still progressing with Black Hawk engine upgrade

Senior army officials in 2025 implied they would not move forward with the T901 Improved Turbine Engine, but GE Aerospace now says the programme continues with flight testing and development.

The US Army is continuing work on a new powerplant for Sikorsky’s UH-60M Black Hawk medium-lift helicopter, despite last year implying the programme had been cancelled.

GE Aerospace, which developed the T901 Improved Turbine Engine (ITE) for the US Army to replace the helicopter’s twin GE T700 turboshafts, confirmed on 15 April that development work on the new turboshaft is ongoing, including both flight and factory testing.

Thomas Champion, GE’s T901 executive programme director, says the engine has logged 2,300h of runtime on a ground stand and completed multiple test flights.

“We’ve got quite a bit of hours under our belt and have demonstrated all the key performance parameters and basically validated the performance of the engine,” Champion said at the annual Army Aviation Association of America conference, being held in Nashville, Tennessee, this week.

GE has delivered six T901 engines to the army as part of the flight-test programme, with more powerplants currently being assembled. Sikorsky began hover and horizontal flight tests with a T901-equipped UH-60M in May 2025 at the rotorcraft manufacturer’s flight development centre in West Palm Beach, Florida.

While Sikorsky pilots flew those test sorties, active-duty US Army pilots are now taking the stick to evaluate the new engine.

Those flights are focused on expanding the T901’s flight envelope, with GE saying the engine will generate 50% more power, burn less fuel and be more durable than the T700.

Champion says the company plans to complete all necessary testing and evaluation events within 12-18 months, at which point the army will make a decision about transitioning to low-rate initial production – Milestone C, in Pentagon lingo.

That is a remarkably different story from what senior army leaders said at last year’s aviation conference, which is known colloquially as Quad A. At the 2025 event, top generals announced a sweeping reorganisation of their long-term aviation strategy and cancelled a number of procurement efforts, citing budgetary pressure.

That included the T901, according to army officials speaking at the 2025 Quad A.

General James Mingus, the then-vice chief of staff who has since retired, at the time said procurement of the new engine was on hold, with decisions about further development work unsettled. He did, however, note that the test programme would continue until existing funds were expended.

But the effort has actually been moving forward.

“The programme was never cancelled, and it is not cancelled,” is what Champion now says he had to tell GE’s many T901 suppliers in 2025.

Shortly after the army cast doubt about the ITE programme at last year’s Quad A, GE began discussions with top service officials, including secretary of the army Dan Driscoll, to make a case for continuing T901 development.

“Very quickly, within a month after that happening, I think it became clear the value that the engine brings to the army and the importance of keeping it going,” Champion says.

Congress also stepped in, with lawmakers delivering $238 million across two 2026 spending bills to support ongoing work on the initial engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase of the T901 project.

“We’ve got a ton of resources today,” says Mike Souza, GE’s T901 executive programme manager. “We will need a little bit more money to get through the EMD programme, but it’s certainly not anywhere close to the money that we’ve already received for the programme.”

That momentum does not mean fielding the new turboshaft is guaranteed.

The army must still make a production decision and commit resources to roll out the T901 across some 2,300 UH-60Ms fleet-wide. Champion says GE Aerospace is in active discussions with the army to find a pathway to T901 production.

Also under deliberation is a possible re-engining of the Boeing AH-64E Apache attack helicopter.

The T901 was designed to be compatible with both the Apache and Black Hawk, as well as with prototypes for the now-cancelled Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft.

However, the army sidelined a new AH-64E engine as part of its strategic pivot last year. While the two rotorcraft were originally meant to undergo T901 testing simultaneously, the army is now evaluating the engine only on Black Hawks.

Champion cites “interest and desire” within the US Army to progress with the Black Hawk re-engining ahead of upgrading the AH-64E’s propulsion, but says a path to achieving that goal is being worked out.

There are currently no firm plans for what will come after the next 12-18 months, as GE and Sikorsky work through certificating the T901. Champion says the nature of the engine business is such that new orders come with a roughly two-year lag between signing contracts and deliveries.

“But there’s different courses of action that can accelerate that,” he notes.

A March report from the US Government Accountability Office says T901 production for the Black Hawk may not begin until 2029.