Something atypical: a farm tractor towing a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter in Spain

@DefAviation ES 4·24·2023 · 7:12 0

The Ukrainians have become famous for towing Russian tanks with their farm tractors. But these are also used for more things.

The vehicles of the US Military Police guarding the Spanish naval base in Rota
The US Army already has a replacement for the UH-60 Black Hawk: the Bell V-280 Valor

We recently saw an example of this in Spain: a John Deere agricultural tractor - a famous American brand whose tractors they have also towed Russian armored vehicles into Ukraine - dragging something even more valuable than a tank: a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter (you can click on the image to see it enlarged).

These images were taken by the US Navy at the Rota Naval Base on April 7 and appeared on April 14 the DVIDS portal of the United States Armed Forces. The helicopters belonged to the 5th Battalion of the 159th Aviation Regiment of the 244th Expeditionary Combat Aviation Brigade of the US Army. The helicopters possibly arrived by boat and were to be transported by plane and on the way between the docks and the air base, several tractors had to be used to tow them.

In the images you can see two tractors from the Rota air base towing two of the helicopters. The John Deere agricultural tractor was towing the first of the aircraft, escorted by a Seat León of the Spanish Naval Police and a fourth generation Ford Focus Sedan from the American Military Police of the Rota Naval Base. The usual thing in these cases is to use the small airstrip tractors of the air base, as we already saw here in 2019.

It is not the first time that the United States Armed Forces have used a John Deere farm tractor to tow a helicopter of this type. Doing some searching, I found this US Department of Defense photo Taken by a USAF Airman on September 8, 2016 at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. In this case, a civilian contractor was in charge of towing this UH-60 Black Hawk with an agricultural tractor of that brand.