Black Hawk completes one-button automated flight with GRC 4000 autopilot

Moog Inc., a US aerospace and defense technology company, successfully demonstrated its new Genesys GRC 4000 four-axis rotorcraft autopilot on a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter in October 2025. The system enabled a fully automated flight encompassing liftoff, hover, enroute flight, and landing, all initiated with a single button press and requiring minimal pilot intervention. Integrated with the Black Hawk’s Genesys Avionics Suite, the GRC 4000 represents a significant advancement in military aviation automation by handling complex flight phases traditionally managed by pilots, thereby allowing them to focus on situational awareness and critical mission decisions. The GRC 4000 autopilot includes features such as stability augmentation, envelope protection to prevent unsafe flight conditions, and automatic recovery to near-level attitudes. It supports multiple pitch and roll control modes—like altitude hold, airspeed hold, glide slope tracking, heading hold, and navigation tracking—and offers optional yaw control for managing the helicopter’s rotation