Federal Register Carries Norway's 21 UH-60M Black Hawks at USD 2.3 Billion — Nine HH-60W Helicopters Dropped
Washington, 22 September 2026
Key points
- Transmittal 26-83, delivered to Congress on 21 August and published in the Federal Register on 22 September: 21 UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters, 46 T700-GE-701D engines, 25 sets each of AN/AAR-57 missile warning, Common Infrared Countermeasure and AN/APR-39E(V)2 radar warning, 50 embedded GPS/INS, 100 AN/ARC-231A radios and 18 M240H machine guns; USD 2.3 billion, USD 1.2 billion of it major defence equipment
- The non-MDE list runs from snow skis, winterisation kits and a degraded-visual-environment system to rescue hoists, patient litters, fast-rope kits, external fuel tanks, a Bambi bucket and Link 16 terminals. Lockheed Martin's Sikorsky at Stratford is the prime; no offset agreement is known; about 15 government and 15 contractor representatives would deploy to Norway
- The State Department's justification: the sale will "upgrade Norway's rotary wing capability, allowing Norwegian Army and Special Operations Forces to independently conduct operations while taking advantage of a common platform across the fleet"
- In 2025 the State Department approved nine HH-60W combat-rescue helicopters for Norway; trade reporting says Oslo did not proceed. Norway has not publicly confirmed the UH-60M purchase and the notification does not say what the aircraft replace
Norway's helicopter decision reaches the Federal Register before it reaches the public from Oslo: 21 Black Hawks for the army and special forces, approved a month ago in Washington and unacknowledged in Norway since.
The notification is a ceiling on a possible Foreign Military Sale, not an order; Congress had its 15-day review from 21 August and the Letter of Offer follows only if Oslo signs. The package is built for the country: 25 self-protection suites for 21 airframes, skis, a weather radar, a heater, an armour kit and the sensor turret with laser designator, plus the utility fit of hoists, litters and a firefighting bucket that a national fleet rather than a single-role squadron needs. The Department states that Norway "will have no difficulty absorbing" the aircraft and that the sale "will not alter the basic military balance in the region".
The reversal is the story behind the line items. The HH-60W approval of 2025 was a rescue helicopter for a rescue task; the UH-60M is a tactical transport, and the justification names the army and the special operations forces as the users. Trade reporting expects the Black Hawks to supplant the Royal Norwegian Air Force's 18 Bell 412s, in service for more than thirty years and through a mid-life upgrade, and notes that neighbouring Sweden operates the type and added twelve to its fifteen in 2024. None of that is in the notification, and Oslo has said nothing about fleet, base or timeline.
An FMS approval is a ceiling Norway has already let one of lapse this year, and the choice of a transport over a rescue aircraft says which gap Oslo ranked first: the army's tactical lift, thin since the NH90 contract was terminated in 2022, not the search-and-rescue task the AW101 fleet already covers. The Finnmark brigade is being built with artillery, air defence and a communications company and needs to move under armour and by air in the north; a Black Hawk with skis is that requirement written as a parts list. The notification's silence on what the aircraft replace is Oslo's to fill, and the observable is a Norwegian defence materiel agency statement, not a second Federal Register entry. Signal No. 152 noted that the archive had missed the 21 August approval.
Related · Norway's force build-up
