Brian Brackens, a spokesman at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, revealed that six countries are eyeing the HH-60W for their own use, but that the UAE is the only one so far to receive price and availability information.

Sikorsky is building the new helicopters to replace the Pave Hawk fleet. The Combat Rescue Helicopter offers greater range, an updated cockpit and new surveillance tools, among other improvements over the standard UH-60. Sikorsky noted that while adding foreign customers to the programme would drive down the helicopter's unit cost, the amount of reduction would depend on the specific features of each variant.

"Combat Rescue Helicopters for foreign customers would be produced using the Air Force configuration as the baseline," Brackens added. "Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation would determine if the current production line is sufficient to support future customer demand."