Ace Aeronautics president and CEO Rich Enderle and his team of “A Players” feel immense pride in their accomplishments and great excitement about the future. With ongoing new international and domestic orders and continued expansion of cockpit options, Ace Aero is kicking off 2025 in what will be its most successful year ever.
“We are the industry’s one-stop shop for safe, modernized, customized and certified Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks that meet the needs of our customers,” Enderle said.
The Black Hawk is the most versatile helicopter in the world, and governments and civilian operators have long relied upon this platform to meet a wide range of applications.
“There are others who do part of what we do, but we do it all for domestic, international, government and civilian operators,” Enderle said. “Ace is also focused on providing a certified solution and then sustaining that solution for years to come. Other firms don’t offer nearly the same level of certification that we do. This approach has resonated throughout the industry and our growth continues to be rapid. In 2023, we had 30 employees and by the end of 2025, we expect to have 200.”
Headquartered at the municipal airport in Guntersville, Alabama, Ace Aero was started in 2015 to support the modernization and long-term sustainment of the Black Hawk. The company is proudly positioned as a full-service resource for rotary-wing aircraft — from maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services to airframe, avionics, paint, engineering and certification.
The company cut its teeth in 2015 with the implementation of the Ace Deck VL-60 cockpit upgrade, a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-approved supplemental type certificate solution, which integrates the Garmin G5000H avionics suite into the UH-60/S-70 Black Hawk family.
“The market for our Ace Deck cockpit is growing daily,” Enderle said. “We have delivered several Black Hawks with the modernized Ace Deck to various foreign governments, as well as commercial operators. To date, Ace Aero has also completed Black Hawk cockpit upgrades for the governments of Portugal, Ukraine and Austria, and a private operator in the U.S.”
In mid-2024, the Portuguese Air Force (FAP) placed an order for three UH-60L Black Hawks from Ace Aero. Each of these aircraft are designed to assist in the transportation of fully-equipped firefighters to the site of a blaze, and when needed, conduct water drops. In December, Slovakia placed an order with Ace Aero for 12 overhauled and upgraded UH-60L Black Hawk helicopters for its military.
Delivering “your way” Black Hawks
Ace Aero takes great pride in delivering a Black Hawk that is customized to a client’s specific mission requirements. The company’s three “your way” Black Hawk options include a base, refreshed UH-60 with the original analog cockpit, new paint, and completion of all required preventive maintenance. The Ace Deck VL-60 integrated flight deck eliminates obsolescence issues, reduces pilot workload and provides a path for easy future upgrades. The Ace Deck VL-60 Plus includes a mission computer that enables the use of FLIR, tactical maps, aircraft performance calculations, weapons management systems, and more.
“The Ace Deck platform allows exact customization,” Enderle explained. “The architecture is designed with bifurcation of the flight-critical functions so that when we add additional radios or equipment, it does not impact the operational flight program.”
The right choice
In 2023, Ace Aero went in a new direction, first by acquiring aircraft and then beginning the process to return the aircraft to a base configuration in preparation for eventual customization as customers desire. This choice is proving to have been the right one.
“I call it Ace 2.0,” Enderle explained. “Up to 2022, we had been acquiring and modifying aircraft once an order came in. In 2023, we decided to acquire aircraft ahead of time, perform a solid and thorough inspection, make any repairs and then, when a customer places an order, we are ready to install the customer’s chosen upgraded systems, meeting each customer’s needs quickly. We are now positioned to say to customers, ‘Yes, we can deliver to you a customized, safe, modernized aircraft with everything you want, within a timeline that is the best in the business.’ Give us a call anytime about all the upgrades available. We have recently finished developing our latest catalog of options.”
Integral to its success with every order is the Ace Aero technical team, which operates at its 110,000-square-foot (10,220-square-meter) Guntersville headquarters and its 20,000-sq.-ft. (1,860-sq.-m) manufacturing shop in Arlington, Texas. Enderle said the caliber of this expert team, from frontline mechanics to project leaders, is second to none.
Looking back — and ahead — Enderle said, “It’s just over a year now since we chose to differentiate ourselves by investing in aircraft up front and keeping them in inventory, ensuring they are ready to customize and deliver quickly. We are beyond pleased that this approach has, as we predicted, filled a great need in the industry. We will continue in 2025 and beyond to deliver to customers the modernized Black Hawk they require, powered by our absolute dedication to excellence and in the shortest time possible.”
