Philippine Air Force retires its last six UH-1H Hueys as Black Hawks take over

The Philippine Air Force has retired the Bell UH-1H Huey from service, decommissioning the last six helicopters of the type at a ceremony on 5 November 2026 at Brigadier General Benito N. Ebuen Air Base in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu. Air Force commander Lieutenant General Arthur Cordura led the ceremony, according to the service and reports by the Inquirer, ABS-CBN and the state Philippine News Agency.

Air Force spokesperson Colonel Alvin Jay Capinguian told reporters on 6 November that all six aircraft were still flyable when they were stood down. He said, however, that the remaining Hueys had played only a small part in recent years and had mostly been used for training at their home base at Mactan.

The six helicopters have been handed from the 205th Tactical Helicopter Wing, the unit that flew them, to the Air Logistics and Support Command. They will be kept in storage while the Air Force decides how to dispose of them, and no final decision on their fate has been announced.

Capinguian framed the retirement as part of the armed forces modernisation programme. He said the S-70i Black Hawk has already taken over the airlift duties the Huey once performed, and that the newer type carries more and has more modern equipment than the ageing utility helicopter.

He also pointed to a practical problem with keeping the old fleet. According to the Inquirer, he said the analogue radios on the Hueys sometimes struggled to talk to the newer digital radios and equipment that the Philippine Army and Navy have been buying, which made the type harder to fit into joint operations.

The Black Hawk fleet that replaces it is now large. The Philippine News Agency reported that the Air Force operates 45 S-70i helicopters delivered between 2020 and 2026. The Inquirer said the final seven aircraft from a 2022 contract with Polish manufacturer PZL Mielec for 32 more Black Hawks were formally accepted on 26 August, completing that order a little over two months before the Huey retirement.

Capinguian said the deadly crash of a Super Huey in Agusan del Sur in November 2025, in which six Air Force personnel died during a disaster-response mission, did not directly drive the decision. He said talks about retiring the type had been going on for years and that modernisation was the main reason.

The Huey has a long history in Philippine service. The first four UH-1H helicopters arrived at Villamor Air Base on 29 March 1969, and the type went on to carry troops, evacuate casualties and deliver relief across the country for 57 years. The Philippine News Agency said the Air Force had flown somewhere between 40 and 60 Hueys of different models and configurations over that time, while Capinguian said records were still being reviewed to establish the largest number in service at once.

ABS-CBN reported that the spokesperson, who has flown the type himself, described the Huey as one of the most familiar Air Force aircraft for Filipinos because people saw it at first hand during rescue and relief missions after disasters.

With the Huey gone, the Black Hawk becomes the main utility helicopter the Philippine Air Force uses to move troops and deliver disaster relief. The service also no longer has to sustain an older type whose analogue radios could not easily link with the newer equipment the rest of the armed forces are fielding.