Joanna Crews
Lockheed Martin‘s Sikorsky subsidiary will showcase a CH-53K King Stallion helicopter at the ILA Berlin Air Show next month.
Sikorsky completed a strategic airlift capability test of the heavy-lift helicopter platform at its Development Flight Center in Florida before the vehicle was transported to a military air base in Holzdorf, Germany, Lockheed said Wednesday.
The U.S. Air Force granted Air Transportability Test Loading Activity certification to the CH-53K program after SAC demonstration.
The helicopter lifted a cargo hook sling load of up to 36,000 pounds, recorded a forward flight speed of 200 knots and performed 60-degree angle bank turns.
CH-53K also demonstrated takeoff-and-landing maneuvers from sloped surfaces up to 12 degrees as well as external load auto-jettison and gunfire functions.
