HAWKS OVER SYRIA AND THE SEA: Two U.S. Army medical evacuation Blackhawk helicopters takeoff from an undisclosed location in Syria. Photo taken October 31. A day later, U.S. Navy sailors in the Gulf of Oman hook cargo to an MH-60R Sea Hawk. The sailors are assigned to the guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen. (The MH-60R is a navalized variant of the UH-60 Blackhawk.) The Blackhawk and its variants have spawned copycats — for example, the Chinese “Copyhawk.” For what it’s worth, here’s a photo I like — a Blackhawk landing in Balad, Iraq, taken in 2006. Last but not least, a Blackhawk extracts Special Forces operators from a mountain in Afghanistan.