Anti-Corrosion Spray Preserves US Army Black Hawks

04/01/2013 by Paul Fiddian - Armed Forces International's Lead Reporter

Advanced military technology developed by the US Army's Research Laboratory (ARL) and Sikorsky that's designed to prolong the Black Hawk helicopter's service life has won a major environmental award.

The ESTCP (Environmental Security Technology Certification Program) award recognises the benefits of this cold spray technique as a cost-effective, eco-friendly approach to airframe preservation.

Especially as a result of lengthy foreign battlefield deployments, US military aircraft, including Black Hawks, have suffered the effects of wear and wear over the past decade and the combined annual maintenance/repair bill is anything up to $1 billion. Helicopter components are especially susceptible to this kind of wear and tear, but ARL and Sikorsky's cold spray addresses this, coating surfaces with aluminium or alloys to fight corrosion and revitalise otherwise unusable parts.

Anti-Corrosion Helicopter Spray

According to military experts, this is a breakthrough technology since, before now, key helicopter components just couldn't be put back into service in this way and it's now hoped to get the cold spray applied to all in-service Black Hawks, as well as the US Navy's Seahawks.

The anti-corrosion helicopter spray process involves a high-pressure gas that contains minute power particles. The gas is fired from a gun at 6,000 miles per hour speeds and at no point does its temperature exceed 1,500 Fahrenheit. Consequently, there's no risk of the aluminium or other alloys oxidising, melting or decomposing in any way. According to a US Army press release, this cold spray is more versatile and durable than older spray techniques, involving much hotter materials.

Army Black Hawk Spray

The US Army Black Hawk spray also has further advantages, primarily cost-related. For example, far fewer spare parts would be needed to support future frontline operations, leading to drops in both manufacturing and delivery costs.

The spray's developers stress that the application technique isn't toxic gas-based, nor does it involve any chemical reactions.

In other recent Black Hawk news, in November 2012, US Army personnel were involved in a historic autonomous flight when, at one stage, the helicopter was basically flying itself. This test flight involved the specially-modified UH-60A RASCAL platform - just one of the 2,000 Black Hawks to have been built since the first example was produced in 1974.