ALWAYS READY ROTARY WING Coast Guard helicopters evolved from struggling experiments to powerful lifesavers and continue to acquire new capabilities for broader missions. BY FRANK COLUCCI
EARLY EXPERIMENTS Coast Guard capabilities have also evolved in parallel with helicopter technology. On April 20, 1942, the chief of the Aviation Engineering Division, Cmdr. William Kossler, and the commanding officer of AirSta Brooklyn, New York, Cmdr. Watson Burton, watched the Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 fly at Bridgeport, Connecticut.
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Coast Guard OUTLOOK
A Coast Guard Sikorsky HNS-1 in a hover with a patient in a Stokes litter on the starboard side. It has inflatable pontoons mounted for water landings. The HNS-1 at Coast Guard Air Station Brooklyn was used to develop rescue hoists in 1944.
Controlled helicopter flight with side-by-side rotors was demonstrated in prewar Germany, but Igor Sikorsky’s experimental VS-300 made dominant the more compact single main rotor layout with anti-torque tail rotor. The VS-300 refined helicopter handling qualities and made vertical lift an option for wartime missions. While Burton advocated the helicopter as an air-sea rescue platform and alternative to harbor patrol blimps, Lt. Cmdr. Frank Erickson proposed helicopters flying from Atlantic convoy ships with dipping sonar and radar to counter German submarine attacks, according to the April 2018 Sikorsky Archives News. Kossler served on an interagency board for joint Army-Navy/Coast Guard helicopter buys and noted Sikorsky’s 2,500-pound S-47/R-4 in production for the Army could carry two crewmembers,
IGOR I. SIKORSKY HISTORICAL ARCHIVES
When Hurricane Michael smashed the Florida Gulf Coast last October, Coast Guard helicopters pre-positioned from air stations as far away as Detroit and Traverse City, Michigan, helped save 63 lives. When Hurricane Florence flooded the Carolinas in September, MH-60T Jayhawks and MH-65D Dolphins saved 199 storm victims and assisted 100 more. The Coast Guard now has 45 MH-60Ts and 98 MH-65s, and today’s helicopters do a lot more than search and rescue (SAR). Dolphins from the National Capitol Region Air Defense Facility routinely enforce the special flight rules area protecting the White House. Last spring, a Jayhawk from Coast Guard Air Station (AirSta) San Diego, California, placed a new light off Seal Beach, California, one task in helicopter support for maritime navigation aids. In 2017, Dolphins from the Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON) homebased at Jacksonville, Florida, scored their 500th drug bust when they intercepted a go-fast smuggling boat in the Eastern Pacific. Later that year, Jayhawks from Coast Guard AirSta Miami airlifted food and water around Puerto Rico to survivors of Hurricane Maria. The Coast Guard has about 600 helicopter pilots who train at their home stations and return to the Aviation Training Center in Mobile, Alabama, for annual standardization. Cmdr. Michael Brimblecom in the Office of Aviation Forces noted, “The Coast Guard has seen a large growth in mission sets to include national defense, air intercept, and airborne use of force, to go along with its more traditional role of search and rescue and law enforcement missions. Our missions have evolved as the nation’s interests and global threats have evolved.”
