Slovakia buys Black Hawk helicopters to replace unwanted Vipers

Two Black Hawk helicopters take off during a demonstration by the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base near Constanta, Romania, March 31, 2023.
“After months of deliberation, Slovakia has finally decided to purchase 12 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters for its military,” said Slovakian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Robert Kalinyak. The move could prompt Ukrainian authorities to step up their lobbying in Washington as Kyiv seeks to acquire the 12 AH-1Z Vipers that Bratislava rejected.
The Black Hawk offer, which includes used, modernized helicopters, was submitted by Ace Aeronautics, which is part of the Helicopter Alliance group, local daily Denník N reports. The group is controlled by Czech entrepreneur Jaroslav Strnad, the founder and former owner of the local defense group Czechoslovak Group. The holding is currently owned by the founder's son Michal Strnad and operates a number of production facilities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The Bell AH-1Z Viper is a twin-engine attack helicopter based on the AH-1W SuperCobra, developed and manufactured by the American company Bell Helicopter. It is one of the last representatives of the Bell Huey helicopter family. It is often called the "Zulu Cobra", based on the pronunciation of its variants in the military phonetic alphabet. During the 1970s, single-engine versions of the AH-1 helicopter formed the backbone of the Army's combat aviation USA. The Huey Cobra helicopter family has been decommissioned in the US, but in a number of countries they remain the main strike vehicle on the battlefield. The AN-1 helicopter family, equipped with two engines, appeared in the late 1960s. They were created in accordance with the requirements of the US Marine Corps (USMC), which was also the first customer.
The AH-1J Sea Cobra is the first of the twin-engine Cobra family, originally a single-engine version of the Army AH-1G. It was to feature a rotor brake, which is required for carrier-based helicopters, standard avionics used in the US Navy, more powerful weapons, and corrosion protection. It should be noted that the AH-1G helicopters found limited use in the Marine Corps, so it was more logical to make a machine with the same power plant. But the Marine Corps command changed traditions and wanted to have a slightly different helicopter with two gas turbine engines. Therefore, the green light was given to replace the single-engine Huey Cobra helicopters with twin-engine ones equipped with gas turbine engines made in Canada.
The Marine Corps managed to acquire a more effective combat helicopter with twin Pratt & Whitney Canada T400-SR-400 (RT6T-4) gas turbines and a three-barrel 20-mm M-197 cannon in a new nose turret. This cannon was a lightweight version of the well-known six-barrel M61 Vulcan cannon, its ammunition was 750 rounds, one burst did not exceed 16 shots. The T400-SR-400 engine was also used on the Bell 212 and UH-1N multi-purpose helicopters. The helicopter's power plant consisted of two gas turbines driving a main rotor through a common gearbox. Naturally, the new power plant was more powerful than the Lycoming T53 engine. But its main advantage was its increased reliability. The AH-1J used the same rotor as the original Huey Cobra, so its maximum continuous power of 1530 horsepower provided more lift, which was important for hovering.
The first AH-1J helicopter was delivered to the customer in September 1969. In July 1970, four machines were sent to the Naval Aviation Flight Test Center in Patuxent River for evaluation tests. The first Sea Cobras arrived in Vietnam in February 1971, where they quickly confirmed their combat capabilities. Subsequently, the "marine" AH-1J received the ability to carry a wider range of weapons than the army AH-1G. The design of the underwing pylons was changed, a new system for ejecting the cockpit canopy was used. Some AH-1J helicopters were retrofitted to accommodate missiles AIM-9B Sidewinder air-to-air missile. There were plans to adapt the AH-1J helicopters to carry the AGM-114A Hellfire missile, but this idea was later abandoned. In the 1990s, the remaining AH-1J Sea Cobra helicopters were transferred to Marine Corps reserve squadrons, but they began to be decommissioned in the early 2000s.
AH-1W Super Cobra. In 1981, the US Congress refused to provide the Marine Corps with funds to purchase Hughes AH-64A Apache attack helicopters. Instead, Bell received a $4,1 million contract to evaluate the feasibility of using the T700-GE-401 engine in the AH-1T attack helicopter. At that time, the company was implementing various improvements on the AH-1T+ helicopter (serial number 16-1022), proposing to install a system for reducing the temperature of the exhaust gas stream and side fuselage fairings to accommodate the electronic systems needed for the TOW ATGM (previously they were located in the tail boom). The prototype could carry Sidewinder, Hellfire, and TOW missiles, as well as AN/ALE-139 countermeasures.
The first production helicopter was designated AH-1W. The initial order was for 44 upgraded helicopters plus one TAH-1W trainer, with the Corps also receiving 179 new aircraft. The remaining 43 AH-1Ts were later converted to AH-1Ws. No more than 190 helicopters of this model were in service. The export buyer was Turkey, which received 10 helicopters from the US Marine Corps. Bell offered the AH-1W Super Cobra to the Turks in a competition for a new attack helicopter. The Turkish army planned to purchase 145 aircraft, but on the condition that they be manufactured at a local plant. The Taiwanese armed forces purchased 1993 helicopters from 1997–42. Romania had ambitious plans to build 95 AH-1W Super Cobra helicopters in the AH-1RO Dracula variant under license. But these plans were not destined to come true.
The next generation of the Cobra, the AH-1Z, was developed over a long period of time during the 1990s and early 2000s as simply the H-1 upgrade program under the US Marine Corps' Operational Requirements (OTC). Essentially an upgrade of the existing AH-1Ws, it was originally intended to be an upgrade program for existing aircraft before further contracts were awarded for new helicopters. The AH-1Z and the Bell UH-1Y Venom utility helicopter share a tail boom, engines, rotor, transmission, avionics architecture, software, controls, and displays, sharing more than 84% of their components. It also features a four-bladed, hingeless, composite rotor, an improved transmission, and a new targeting system, among other improvements. The AH-8Z made its maiden flight on December 2000, 1, and initial low-rate production began in October 2003.
On September 30, 2010, the United States Marine Corps declared the AH-1Z to have achieved "combat capability"; it fully replaced the previous AH-1W Super Cobra helicopter in October 2020. The helicopter is a key element of the Aviation Combat Element (ACE) task force, which supports all phases of the United States Marine Corps' expeditionary operations. Since its introduction, the United States Marine Corps has carried out various upgrades, such as installing the Link 16 datalink and equipping it with the AGM-179A Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM). In addition, the AH-1Z has been sought after by numerous export customers, regularly competing with the Boeing AH-64 Apache for export orders. The first export customer was the Royal Bahraini Air Force, and the Czech Air Force has also ordered the helicopter. At one point, Pakistan was set to award a contract for a large batch of AH-1Z helicopters, but the deliveries were blocked in the US Congress due to political factors.
The Black Hawks were recently offered by the Americans to Bratislava to replace a failed contract for 12 AH-1Z Viper helicopters, a new contract worth about €150 million ($158 million) without weapons, compared with the revised price of the Vipers, which was more than €550 million, according to Slovakia's defense minister. The Black Hawk is made by Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky, and the Viper by Bell.
In July 2024, the U.S. State Department approved an advance Foreign Military Sale for 12 Vipers to Slovakia for about $600 million, a significant increase from the original $340 million price offered to the previous Slovak cabinet. The discount came after a deal with Pakistan, the original intended recipient of a large batch of Vipers, fell through.
The previous government of Slovakia was offered Vipers at a discount as part of the attack helicopter program, but the government that came to power in October 2023 hesitated for a long time about the clearly forced purchase. In the end, officials from the Slovak Ministry of Defense made an extremely rational and sensible decision - to purchase transport and attack helicopters instead of purely combat helicopters. In any case, to spend money like this, with applied, utilitarian purposes. The Black Hawks can be used as transport helicopters, search and rescue helicopters, and the Ministry of Emergency Situations may also find useful helicopters. Slovakia is surrounded by NATO countries, paying $ 50 million apiece for used attack helicopters with a penny remaining service life, the Vipers for it is an absolute waste of money.
A senior industry official close to the talks told Defense News that the Ukrainian government requested the Vipers from Washington about 20 months ago, and the latest move is likely to further galvanize Kyiv’s lobbying efforts to snag the contract. The swiped contract remains on the market, but the fight for it will continue under the table between the Pakistanis and the Ukrainians, fighting over 50-year-old helicopters priced at $50 million each. “They would be flying them by now,” said one senior State Department official, referring to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The Slovak Army currently has a squadron of nine UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters at its disposal.
Information