Blackhawk

The Caprican Marine Blackhawk (in front of an Air Force Phoenix) outside Caprica City.

The Blackhawk is a twin-engine VTOL aircraft employed by the Caprican Marine Corps in the years prior to the First Cylon War.

Fifty-eight years before the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, the Caprican Marines dispatch one of these aircraft to pursue an escaped Cylon prototype from Graystone Industries, alongside a Caprican Air Force Phoenix-type jet (CAP: "End of Line").

Some months later, a squadron of U-87 Cyber Combat Units operate several Marine Blackhawks in an assault on Soldiers of the One terrorists, landing on the field of Atlas Arena and engaging the attackers in a firefight (CAP: "Apotheosis").

These vehicles employ DRADIS technology (CAP: "End of Line", "Apotheosis").

Notes

• The Blackhawk appears to be comprised of elements of modern military aircraft including the SH-60 Seahawk and the Boeing V-22 Osprey.

• The name "Blackhawk" originates from CG modeler Pierre Drolet who describes the aircraft on his personal website:

I had already built a highly detailed Seahawk, so I gave her a second life and makeover by adding on some Caprica[n] technology. This aircraft was also an alternative to the other aircraft called the Phoenix Air Force, but we end up using both of them in the same scene during a car chase.

• These aircraft are marked with the distinctive pentagonal shape seen on the Caprican Viper in "The Imperfections of Memory", the Cylon Raider of The Original Series and the similar Cylon War-era Raider in the Re-imagined Series and Blood and Chrome, suggesting a link between Caprican technology and that of Cylons in the Cylon War.