Fast Five With Sikorsky CEO Rich Benton

Benton, who has led the Lockheed Martin-owned company since June 2024, met with Brian Everstine at the Association of the United States Army conference in October, where Sikorsky unveiled a new uncrewed version of its H-60 Black Hawk helicopter and showcased the Nomad, a scalable, rotor-blown-wing, uncrewed system.

Sikorsky unveiled the U-Hawk in Washington, developed internally, to focus on autonomy for the U.S. Army. What was the background of this development, and why unveil it now? It is trying to shift into gears and the throttle of delivering capability faster, hearing what the customers are saying, [adjusting] them to the mission . . . and then [assessing] how we can bring existing capability or technology that we already have—blending it together to bring capability faster to the fight. U-Hawk was [to] put a stake in the sand and prove that we can do something quick by leveraging what we've already got. It’s not often that you see Lockheed Martin delivering a capability in 10 months, and we've still got some work to do. Let’s get a 75% solution, let’s prove a capability, let’s get feedback from our customers, [and] let’s iterate. We talk about failing fast, failing forward and moving at pace and providing 75% solutions. We have a mission requirement, not a set of detailed requirements for U-Hawk, so that’s allowed us to [determine] this is what the mission needs.

How do you see U-Hawk and Nomad becoming formal programs? What’s next? For both of those, it’s proving the capability, demonstrating it in real mission environments and demonstrating the experimentation. It is partnering with DARPA and the Early Vertical-Takeoff-and-Landing Aircraft Demonstration program, getting Nomad on wing, flying with its 60-lb. payload, providing relevant data and mission-capable performance . . . and getting it into the user’s hands. Let them experiment with it. [That] will help to define the requirement and help us deploy systems at a much faster rate. The Secretary of the Army is very specific about [the] need to innovate. We need to move fast; we need to provide mission-capable solutions. And we can’t wait 7-10 years to do it.

You are working on another multiyear deal for the Black Hawk, and you just had a very big CH-53 award. Where do you see the company going beyond that? We have long-standing legacy programs. When I look at the future, we’re looking at it less as platform-centric and more [as a] family of effects. We have what we’re calling our Hawk family of effects. And you may have a piloted Black Hawk and unpiloted U-Hawk, or [an] autonomous Black Hawk. When I look at the future of Sikorsky, there will always be our platforms, but what is the technology and the innovation?

In the future, the Black Hawk is not going to fly alone, right? It’s going to have launched effects (LE), potentially is going to have a Nomad doing persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). When I think about aircraft in the future, I think of them as nodes on the network.

We’re investing in the technology that’s going to make that a reality and make sure our platforms that are out there today stay relevant in the future. Some of the missions they do today may be substituted; some of those missions may be offloaded and can be done unmanned. Some of those missions we believe will continue to be manned. When you think heavy sling loads, when you think [casualty evacuation], we think about deploying crews into the fight. Those we believe, for a while, will continue to be manned missions. And then there are some unmanned missions where we could offload, whether it’s just ISR, putting small payloads on targets. Those are things Nomad or the LE can do. 

Do you see other international opportunities for the CH-53K? We’re building the first Israeli -53K. We have the first cabin for Israel there. Israel is the first international customer. There are other international customers in Europe and Southeast Asia that we continue to talk to. When they need the most advanced heavy-lift helicopter, the -53K is it. It was born and built all-digital. It does a mission that no other heavy-lift helicopter can do. There’s an open competition in South Korea relative to heavy lift that we have been having conversations about for the last several years. 

What is Sikorsky’s view on the oil and gas market, and where do you plan to go with the S-92, both commercially and for military users? Right now, the most interest we’re getting for the S-92 is for heads of state. We delivered the VH-92 and closed out that production and delivered those 23 aircraft last year. We just signed a contract with Vietnam for two heads-of-state helicopters. And as we ramp up that production, we’re looking at building more S-92s than just the two. We know the demand is out there. We have interest from other heads of state.

Oil and gas is very price-sensitive. The S-92 is at the high end of the medium helicopter market. Our customers that use the S-92 are very happy with what we’re doing. We’re focused on getting that operational readiness rate as high as it can be and making sure the spares are there when our operators need them.