Sikorsky offers its S-70i Armed Black Hawk in the Philippines and tries to revive the market for armed maneuver helicopters

Definitely, the tiny Filipino market stirs up all the greed! In a previous article, we have indeed seen how the Americans Bell and Boeing were positioning themselves with radically different offers in order to replace the offer of the Turkish industrialist TAI at short notice. The winner of this commercial competition will thus be able to place half a dozen combat helicopters with the Philippine Air Force. If the Filipino ambitions seem modest, the contracts envisaged still count in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

However, for American industrialists, the Philippine market is mainly seen as a showcase for the whole of the Asia-Pacific region, where the need for combat helicopters is estimated at several hundred copies. In this context, a third American competitor has just announced its participation in the Philippine competition. While Boeing and Bell offer dedicated combat aircraft, Sikorsky hopes to position himself near Manila with his Armed Black Hawk, a versatile helicopter that does not lack arguments to seduce.

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