Czech Republic-based Helicopter Alliance believes there is a need for 20-40 refurbished Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks in Europe for civil firefighting or disaster relief operations by 2030 as the continent tackles the growing threat from wildfires.
Indeed, there are already signs of growing interest in the platform, with France’s SAF Aerogroup on 11 March signing with Helicopter Alliance for four examples plus six options for delivery from the end of 2026. These will be assigned to South African subsidiary Starlite Aviation but operated in Europe for firefighting missions.
Helicopter Alliance’s Slovakian subsidiary Heli Company is itself involved on the operational side, currently using a fleet of four Black Hawks for firefighting.
The new assets for SAF Aerogroup will be sourced from Helicopter Alliance-owned Ace Aero, a US-based Black Hawk refurbishment specialist, with training and maintenance support provided by Slovak Training Academy, another group business.
Jonathan Castorena, vice-president international business and sales at the Prague-headquartered company, believes its ‘one-stop-shop’ solution makes it ideally positioned to serve European customers.
“This is what we are doing – we are bringing a whole ecosystem to the market.
“We are hoping this [contract] will be a catapult for other operators to see a very successful and large European operator has embraced it and we are hoping the avalanche will come,” he told FlightGlobal at the Verticon show in Atlanta.
Based on the current demand, Castorena forecasts sales “by the end of the decade of between 20-40 in Europe”.
Although the continent is investing in its firefighting capabilities “the threat is growing faster than the industry can support now”, he says.
“When you have three- or four-year lead times for new helicopters, and the pre-owned market has dwindled down where people are looking for alternatives. What’s left as the option is divested Black Hawks. This is where we can provide a quick solution and we are looking for the next big operator to embrace them.”
SAF Aerogroup, which already has a fleet of five Airbus Helicopters H215s for firefighting – with another eight to be operated on behalf of Greece – sees the Black Hawks as a lower-cost alternative for price-sensitive markets across the Mediterranean region, says co-chief executive Thibault Nicodeme.
“We identified a clear need to get access to second-hand aircraft to give us more competitiveness,” he says, particularly against companies flying older Russian-built assets like the Mil Mi-8.
“This is competition we cannot match with the current platform,” says Nicodeme, who nonetheless describes the Black Hawks and H215s as “complementary platforms”.
He says Starlite’s South African air operator’s certificate (AOC) is a “competitive advantage” to introduce the Black Hawk into the market, with a single UH-60 already on the country’s civil aircraft register. “There is no plan to have them on our European AOCs,” he adds.
Starlite teams will operate alongside Heli Company crews this year “to get them ready for when they have their aircraft and they’ll be ready to go by themselves in 2027”.
And wary of competing with its own customers, Heli Company will cease flight operations once its current crop of contracts expire in 2027. “We always wanted to move into support – we saw the operations as marketing to show that [the UH-60] is a proven system and it can operate in Europe,” says Castorena.
Its current four-unit UH-60 inventory will then transfer to SkyConnect Leasing, the operational arm of Skyrise Leasing, a new venture set up last year by former Bell sales executive Patrick Moulay.
Skyrise last autumn signed an agreement with Helicopter Alliance for 12 UH-60s for delivery in 2026 and 2027.
In addition to the civil market, Helicopter Alliance has seen success in Europe with sales of refurbished Black Hawks to the governments of Austria (3), the Czech Republic (3), Portugal (3), Slovakia (12) and Ukraine (3). Prague last year also committed to three new-build S-70Ms in the Firehawk configuration via Helicopter Alliance company Ceska Letecka Servisini.
Elsewhere, Helicopter Alliance is pursuing “various opportunities” in South America, building on its existing agreement with Brazil for 12 aircraft.
Ace Aero has access to a ready supply of former US Army-operated Lima-model UH-60s through its management of the service’s Black Hawk Exchange & Sales Transaction programme to divest used assets.
It stores these aircraft – around 60-80 units are divested annually – and prepares them for auction.
Those acquired by the company for refurbishment are stripped back to bare metal to check for fatigue or corrosion issues, with their engines, transmission and blades similarly examined and reconditioned.
Avionics obsolescence issues are also addressed, with the company’s Garmin G5000H-based AceDeck VL-60 system a favoured update.
Helicopter Alliance acquired Ace Aero in 2024.
