Survivability on the Island of Spice: The Development of the UH-60 Blackhawk Helicopter and its Baptism of Fire in Operation Urgent Fury on Grenada - Effect of Poor Intelligence Flying into Enemy Fire

This excellent report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. In 1983 the UH-60 Blackhawk faced its baptism of fire during Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada. Ten Blackhawks sustained battle damage during the assault, and four were destroyed. This helicopter was the culmination of fourteen years of work that started in 1965. As survivability was one of the design criteria for the Blackhawk, this thesis looked at survivability in context of Operation Urgent Fury. In the end the Blackhawk's performance in Grenada was successful and the Blackhawk was a survivable aircraft in the materiel sense. That being said, the Blackhawk was not survivable when the Army operated outside its own doctrine, tactics, and procedures. Operation Urgent Fury exposed serious shortcomings with the concept of survivability as incorporated into the design of the Blackhawk. The issues of poor intelligence, poor planning, and poor execution contributed to the numerous hits from small arms and anti-aircraft fire that the Blackhawks received, and yet they continued to fly. However it is impossible for any aircraft to repeatedly fly into enemy fire and not take casualties or damage. This is why it is impossible and misleading to separate an aircraft's design for survivability from the doctrine, tactics, techniques, and situations in which it is used.

The sound of rotor blades shattered the quiet morning of October 25, 1983 in Grenada as nine UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters spread across the island, delivering Special Forces operators to their objectives. After a power struggle led to the killing of Maurice Bishop, the revolutionary leader of the last four years, the United States military intervened in the tiny island nation. In its first major operation since the end of the Vietnam War, the President of the United States sent the military to rescue American medical students at the St. Georges University. Although significant combat operations were over in the first three days, American forces remained on the island until the middle of December. The operation was a success. All of the American medical students returned safely to the United States, and the pre-revolutionary government of Grenada regained power.

Just as the U.S. military was in its first major operation since Vietnam, the Blackhawk helicopter, born directly out of the Army's helicopter experience in Vietnam, saw its first combat in support of Operation Urgent Fury. In 1965 the Army approved the requirements for the Utility Tactical Transport Aircraft System (UTTAS), intending it to replace the UH-1 Iroquois (better known as the Huey). Due to the war in Vietnam the Army delayed the UTTAS until the 1970s, and in 1972 issued a request for proposal to the aviation industry. The proposal for the UTTAS called for increased payload and improved maintainability, reliability, survivability, and performance over the UH-1 it was going to replace. After evaluating the initial entries, the Army awarded contracts to Boeing-Vertol and Sikorsky to develop a UTTAS prototype, and in December 1976 the Army selected the Sikorsky design. Three years later Sikorsky delivered the first UH-60 Blackhawk to the Army.