Today closes a chapter in US Naval Aviation History

[Roadburner440]

So today my command HSL-40 officially tranistioned to HSM-40. Marking the beginning of the end for the SH-60B in US Naval service, and the beginning of the new MH-60R. While a few squadrons have stood up the MH-60R before us we were the last SH-60B FRS (basically pilot/aircrew training command) in the Navy. While we will still be making replacement pilots for the B's as the years go on they will play an ever diminishing role. Our CO was saying that when the SH-60B was introduced to the fleet circa 1985 (just 1 year after I was born, wow) that the Navy had many different helicopter types. H-1, H-2, H-3, H-46, and H-53. Almost all have been replaced by variants of the H-60, and he made a remark that even the 53 will be replaced by the 60 (I do not believe it as I doubt a 60 can tow a mine sled, but I guess anything is theoretically possible). I just think it's cool that for the first time in my Navy career I actually get to be a plank owner of something, and that I have been around working on the B's for the last 7 years of their service lives. Definately are getting long in the tooth. These things definately did not last as long as the A-6, EA-6B, Skyraider, or other aircraft. Guess that is a testament to the degrading quality of aircraft manufacture, and the beating these airframes take being helicopters. Picture is of our new plaque before it goes on the wall, with the first new helicopter. Was going to get a picture of the cakes but there were mostly gone by the time I got to the table. Hard to take pictures of the ceremony itself when your standing at attention. Thankfully it was farely short. :salute:

http://i519.photobucket.com/albums/u359/Roadburner426/media1.jpg

[Snuffy]

:salute:

[jmig]

Thanks for you service to our country.

Good luck with your new aircraft. Live moves on.

:salute:

[Jagdflieger]

Thanks for the update and your service Roadburner.

I remember well my first ride in a UH-60. No more tentative tansition through transitional lift, just pull the collective up to max allowable torque and climb, climb, climb.

[Roadburner440]

I've never riden in a UH-60, or the Navy's versions of it (HH-60H, MH-60S). I have heard the ride in those is pretty smooth and without trouble. Ours are almost always near very heavy take off weights (usually 16,000 or above for the B's, and the R's are somewhere in the neighborhood of 18,000lb or so) so they tend to have a lot more vibrations, and wear out components a lot quicker. I flew to Norfolk, VA one time from Jacksonville on a SH-60B core B model and the whole time I was just watching the avionics racks shacking back and forth, and the extended weapons pylon vibrating out the window. Felt like I was on a washing machine the whole ride up. :barf:Closer you get to that max takeoff weight for us it always seems the worse it is. We were probably very close to the 20,000ish max as we had to carefully decide what we were going to take and such.

[Navy Chief]

Wow, I feel really old now! I remember when the SH-3s were still operating at NAS JAX, and the H-60 was just being introduced to the fleet.......

NC

[TARPSBird]

Tell me about feeling old. :d I remember my first Vietnam cruise on Coral Sea, we had a HC-1 det with UH-2 Seasprites. It wasn't until some years later that the H-3's were assigned to carriers for SAR and logistics.