Poland’s MZL Mielec factory made aviation history more than 15 years ago by becoming the first production line outside the U.S. for the legendary Sikorsky Black Hawk battlefield utility helicopter. Moreover, Mielec is not just any factory; it once served as part of the former Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact’s defense industrial base.
The factory now not only assembles the Black Hawk but it builds other platforms and remains one of the major Polish defense exporters in the country. Meanwhile, Mielec might make history again with another iconic U.S. aircraft.
A new section at Mielec now manufactures the center fuselage and aft and forward sections of the Lockheed Martin F-16V Block 70/72 fighter aircraft. The Polish company still does not produce wing sections, but that might come later as the plant works on creating a completely modernized production and fabrication building dedicated to the F-16 program.
Mielec ships F-16 sections to the Lockheed Martin final assembly line in Greenville, South Carolina. Current F-16 production stands at four per month, but Mielec staff maintain that the production backlog for the aircraft has driven the monthly rate, which the company can augment if needed.
Privately, Mielec management propose repeating the process they completed with the Black Hawk as a template—learning the aircraft’s design and manufacturing methods and eventually becoming an F-16 assembly site.
Beginning by producing pieces of the aircraft, then continuing to modernize additional manufacturing space, Mielec could eventually become a full-scale F-16 assembly line. But the company has not officially confirmed such a plan.
The issue remains a sensitive one, despite increased demand for the aircraft and several years’ gap between contract signing and initial deliveries. Mielec sees itself as an ideal site for a second F-16V production line, but when asked directly if they believe they will become such anytime soon, they politely answer “Next question, please.”
Easternmost Outpost of U.S. Military Aviation
Sikorsky acquired Mielec in 2007, where it initially functioned as a supplier to the U.S. Black Hawk production line. After modernizing the factory’s facilities, the company then became a production site, delivering fully-assembled S-70i models (the export version of the U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk) to foreign customers.
Today PZL Mielec ranks as the largest aviation plant in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region and one of the oldest aerospace enterprises in Poland, having been founded in 1938. The sprawling enterprise is situated not far from the U.S.-NATO staging base at Rzeszów in eastern Poland where munitions and other military hardware destined for delivery to Ukraine fly in every day.
During a visit to the facility, the senior staff explained that several activities take place in parallel with the Black Hawk manufacturing processes, demonstrating the versatility and expertise of the company’s personnel. They include the production of a westernized version of the Ukraine-designed Antonov An-28, designated M-28 in the Polish-produced version.
Mielec business development and programs director Piotr Niedbała explained the company built 180 of the original Ukrainian-design An-28 version during the Soviet era. After the collapse of communism, the company redesigned the on-board system’s configuration and adopted a non-Russian engine to create a western-standard M-28 variant.
“Our engineering office made some 40,000 modifications to develop the M-28 version,” he explained. “This involved integrating a Pratt & Whitney engine, a new avionics suite, and a slate of other substitutions. These modifications were necessary to receive compliance certification from the U.S. FAA and aviation regulatory agencies of several other nations.” Mielec has subsequently built more than 100 of the M-28 versions.
Black Hawk and Beyond
Still, the main activity remains production of the Sikorsky S-70i export variant of the Black Hawk battlefield utility helicopter. The creation of the first European production line meant putting Mielec and the staff of the plant on a dual-track process involving training personnel on the assembly of the helicopter while simultaneously modernizing facilities at the plant to support transitioning from a Polish-design to U.S.-design production equipment.
Sikorsky and Mielec recall the time required for the Polish engineering and production team to “get up to speed” on assembling the S-70i “required only a matter of months—as opposed to the year or more the original build-up to U.S. production plan called for,” one of the senior Polish management team told AIN.
Modernization of the assembly halls began in 2008. The factory completed the first S-70i models in 2009 and the first flight of a Mielec-production Black Hawk occurred in 2010. The Polish company has shipped Black Hawks to 11 nations, including the U.S.
Mielec now sometimes takes the lead role in furnishing export customers with equipment. For example, under the contract terms for 32 new S-70i models ordered by the Philippine Air Force in February 2022, the Polish company serves as the prime supplier instead of the Sikorsky factory in the U.S. The Philippines order is the largest export sale to a single customer since the Mielec production line began manufacturing the aircraft.
The production of the F-16 work performed by Mielec resulted from Lockheed Martin’s acquisition of Sikorsky in 2015. The purchase made the U.S. defense company the largest employer in the CEE. The staff at the facility numbers about 1,600, but those numbers could increase if the facility begins production of another platform.