The US Department of Defense (DoD) announced on October 26 that it had contracted Lockheed Martin to build and deliver four Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk multi-mission maritime helicopters for Greece.
This contract modification, worth US$193.98m, covers the production and delivery of the four MH-60Rs to the Hellenic Navy and exercises the nation’s option to procure three airborne low frequency sonars (ALFS). US Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) – based at Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River in Maryland – is leading the contracting activity, which is scheduled to be completed in February 2025. Work to produce and deliver the MH-60Rs will take place in Owego, New York; Stratford, Connecticut; Troy, Alabama; Brest, France; and Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
![MH-60R [US Navy/Mass Communications Specialist 2nd Class Jason Behnke]](/sites/keyaero/files/inline-images/959902.jpg)
The awarding of this contract modification comes more than a year after the US State Department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) approved the Foreign Military Sale (FMS) of seven MH-60Rs to Greece. The deal, worth an estimated total of US$600m, includes associated spares and support equipment, along with ten APS-I 53(V) multi-mode radars, ten AN/AAS-44C(V) multi-spectral targeting systems and 18 GE Aviation T700-GE-401C turboshaft engines.
In the approval notification (dated July 12, 2020), the DSCA said: “The MH-60R helicopters will bolster the Hellenic Navy’s ability to support NATO and remain interoperable with the US and NATO alliance. The proposed sale will improve Greece’s capability to meet current and future threats.
“The MH-60R multi-mission helicopter will provide the capability to perform anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare missions along with the ability to perform secondary missions including vertical replenishment, search and rescue, and communications relay. Greece will have no difficulty absorbing these helicopters into its armed forces,” it added.
