New Black Hawks will be night-time visitors to Sydney

The army has just taken delivery of 10 new Black Hawk helicopters, welcoming back a trusted war horse – and bringing an end to the fiasco of the often-grounded Taipan fleet | WATCH

An ADF demonstration of the Australian Army’s new UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter on Tuesday. Picture: Liam Mendes / The Australian

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Many Sydneysiders turned their faces skywards on Tuesday as a formation of Black Hawk helicopters swept loud and low over the city, past the Harbour Bridge and Opera House, before turning north for a run to Narrabeen.

Residents of the Harbour City will soon become familiar with the sight and sound of the Black Hawks, as the Australian Army puts the brand-new helicopters through their paces in counter-terrorism rehearsals around the city, including at night, throughout November.

“You’ll hear noise, you’ll see low-level flying,” warned Joint Aviation Systems Division head Major General Jeremy King. “Please don’t be alarmed.”

The army has just taken delivery of 10 new Black Hawks, the first of 40 that will provide Australia’s primary utility helicopter force by the end of the decade – and bring an end to the fiasco of the loathed and often-grounded Taipan fleet.

The new-generation Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawks are expected to cost $2.8bn in total and, so far at least, the program is running within budget.

At an exercise at the Holsworthy Army Barracks on Tuesday to welcome the new helicopters, the army’s top brass were diplomatic about the Black Hawk’s ill-fated predecessor, but close to jubilant about the new arrivals.

“We’ve moved on from the Taipan; I’m not in the business of making comparisons,” said Major General King. “We’re very happy to see an old friend back.”

Major General Jeremy King, left, and Colonel Brenton Mellor with a Black Hawk. Picture: Liam Mendes

The US-made helicopter is a tried and tested war horse, in which Australian troops have seen plenty of action in the past, from Afghanistan to Timor-Leste.

Watching the new Black Hawks go through their paces on Tuesday was Brenton Mellor, a veteran of tours of Afghanistan, PNG and East Timor, and now the army’s Aviation Capability Management director.

Remarkably, Colonel Mellor is a second-generation Black Hawk pilot – his father flew an early version of the same helicopter.

“It’s been an outstanding platform, and I’m very happy to see an upgraded version coming into service,” he said.

Colonel Mellor recalled an episode when Timor President Jose Ramos Horta was shot during an assassination attempt in 2008.

“We were doing an administrative role at the time, but suddenly switched within minutes to have SAS troops on board and responding to the threat,” Colonel Mellor said.

With a new UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter is Colonel Brenton Mellor. Picture: Liam Mendes

Those Black Hawks were phased out when the Howard government spent $3.5bn acquiring the European-made Taipans.

The Taipan fleet had already been grounded several times before a crash off Hamilton Island in Queensland last year killed four crew.

The helicopters are now being sold for spare parts, the airframes into scrap – nobody wants to buy them.

In October last year the US announced the acceleration of the new-generation Black Hawk fleet into Australia.

The Black Hawks will operate from Holsworthy in NSW and Oakey near Toowoomba in Queensland.

The new aircraft won’t be available for firefighting duties this summer, with the focus on making them operational for military purposes as soon as possible next year.

On Tuesday the army staged an exercise at Holsworthy for a scenario in which terrorists had occupied an Australian embassy in a foreign country, with diplomats being held hostage in the resulting siege.

A second nearby building was also occupied by terrorists.

An exercise with a new UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter. Picture: Liam Mendes

Special forces from the 2nd Commando Regiment staged a simultaneous assault on both buildings, with Black Hawk-borne special forces scaling down to the roof of the “embassy” building while another team blasted its way into the other building. Snipers in a third Black Hawk maintained watch over the mission.

After rescuing the “hostages” both teams were successfully extracted by helicopter, those on the roof of the building by attaching themselves to rope ladders slung from the chopper overhead.