Black Hawk training at SAAB

Saab tech­ni­cians are today com­menc­ing their train­ing in the Swedish Armed Forces’ new heli­copter sys­tem, the HKP16 Black Hawk. The train­ing begins with a week-long intro­duc­to­ry course and is fol­lowed by a com­plete course regard­ing the UH-60M Black Hawk.

Saab tech­ni­cians are train­ing to sup­port Sweden’s Black Hawks HKP16. Source: Saab

Swe­den, via the Defence Materiel Admin­is­tra­tion, has signed an inter­gov­ern­men­tal con­tract with the USA regard­ing the pro­cure­ment of 15 UH60‑M heli­copters, with the Swedish des­ig­na­tion HKP16. The inter­gov­ern­men­tal con­tract includes an over­all com­mit­ment by US Gov­ern­ment to ensure Swedish involve­ment with three heli­copters in an oper­a­tional area com­menc­ing in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2013.

The train­ing is pur­suant to an Agree­ment between Saab and Siko­rsky. Saab and Siko­rsky are cur­rent­ly seek­ing to final­ize an agree­ment pur­suant to which Saab will pro­vide sup­port to Siko­rsky, and in exten­sion the US Gov­ern­ment, with the main­te­nance of the Swedish helicopters.

The time is lim­it­ed as the first heli­copters will be land­ing in Swe­den in mid-Decem­ber and the goal is for them to be ready to take to the air by mid-Jan­u­ary 2012.