U.S. Coast Guard Aviation History
Historic Photo Gallery, Volume 3
1946-2000
Sikorsky's HH-60 replaces Sikorsky's HH-3 at Air Station
San Francisco, 1991.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
CDR Frank A. Erickson, USCG, reading orders establishing the Rotary Wing Development Unit, Elizabeth City, N.C., June, 1946. Left-to-right: LT Stewart Graham; ACMM Oliver Berry; ACMM Leo. Brzyki; ACMM Fox; ACMM Hainstock; AMMC1 M. Westerberg; AMMC1 O. Best.
After World War II ended the Coast Guard continued with the testing and development of the helicopter as a search-and-rescue asset. CDR (later Captain) Frank Erickson led the service's efforts despite some resistance from the fixed-wing aviation community.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer unknown.
In September 1946 a Belgian airliner crashed in Gander, Newfoundland and their only hope of rescue was by helicopter. The Coast Guard dismantled a Sikorsky HNS from Air Station Brooklyn and flew it by fixed-wing transport to Gander where it was reassembled. It then effected the rescue of the survivors from their remote crash site. Although woefully underpowered with extremely short range and carrying capacity, the HNS demonstrated the helicopter's versatility as a search-and-rescue platform. Once a more powerful and reliable powerplant and a suitable airframe were developed the helicopter would evolve into the aviation community's premier search-and-rescue platform--but not for some time.
Original Caption: "U.S. Coast Guardsmen take a break during the first Arctic helicopter rescue in the history of aviation. Lieut. August Kleisch (center), Coast Guard pilot of the Sikorsky helicopter 'The Labrador Special,' chats with Lieut. Lawrence G. Pollard, Assistant Operations Officer of the Air Transport Command at Goose Bay. Pollard, flying supplies into the ATC radio-weather station which served as the base for helicopter operations, flew Sgt. G. J. Bunnell, the first man rescued, back to Goose Bay. On the right, facing the camera, is AMM1c Gus Jablonski of Brooklyn, Crew Chief on the Labrador Special. Jablonski worked very hard through the entire operation. Kleisch made all the rescue flights personally."; Date: 2 May 1945; no photo number; photographer unknown.
LT August "Gus" Kleisch was another of the Coast Guard's unheralded helicopter pioneers. He participated in both of the service's international rescue efforts soon after the war: the Gander rescue and the rescue of a Canadian aircrew from a RCAF aircraft crash site in Labrador.
Official caption: "Gander Rescue HNS-1 helicopter; From l to r: Lt. A. N. Fisher, USCG Cape Cod Mass. [;] Lt. Stewart R. Graham, Long Island, N.Y. [;] Oliver F. Berry, ACMM [;] Leo Brzycki, ACMM, Chicago, Ill. [;] Cozy Eldridge, ACMM, Macon, Ga. [;] Merwin Westerberg, AMM1c, Cromwell, Conn." No date; Photo No. 3; photo by "Donohoe."
Click here for more information on the HNS and the Gander rescue.
No official caption; photo dated 1948; no photo number; photographer unknown.
A Consolidated PB4Y at Barber's Point, Hawaii. Large, multi-engine fixed-wing aircraft were used by the Coast Guard after the war for long-range search and rescue missions as well as resupplying LORAN stations throughout the Pacific. These aircraft included many of the Navy versions of the Army Air Force's medium and heavy bombers made famous during the war, including the B-17, B-24 and B-25.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
A Martin PBM Mariner's crew scrambles in response to a SAR call. The late-1940s and early 1950s were the heyday of large seaplanes. Click here for more information and photography of the Martin PBM. The service's best known seaplane pilot was Captain Donald MacDiarmid, who was a fanatical advocate of the seaplane's capabilities. Noted historian and retired Navy/Coast Guard aviator LCDR Barrett Thomas Beard described him as a "nearly fictional character within the ranks of the Coast Guard and the Navy in his lifetime."
Click here to read Captain MacDiarmid's seminal publication CG-306 "Aircraft Emergency Procedures Over Water"; the Coast Guard manual adopted by the Navy (OPNAV Instruction 3730.4) and the Air Force (AFM-64-6). Click here to read LCDR Beard's article about "Cap'm Mac" and his legendary exploits.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
A Martin P5M-1G Marlin's crew scrambles in response to a SAR call. The Coast Guard acquired seven of the large Marlins commencing in 1954. It was the last seaplane used by the service.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
A Martin P5M Marlin on the seaplane ramp of an unknown Coast Guard Air Station. Image scanned from a color slide. Click here for more information on Martin's P5M in Coast Guard service.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer unknown.
A Coast Guard crew from Air Station San Diego and the Navy aviators they rescued, early 1950s. On the far left is LT John Vukic, USCG, who, along with Captain MacDiarmid, were two of the best known seaplane pilots in the Coast Guard. Vukic later survived a terrible crash off the coast of China when he attempted to take off in heavy seas after rescuing the crew of a Navy P2V that had been shot down by the Chinese. Four Navy and five Coast Guard personnel perished in the crash.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
The Coast Guard purchased three of Piasecki HRP-1 "Flying Bananas" in November, 1948. All three operated out of Air Station Elizabeth City. Two were given to the Navy in 1951 while the third crashed in April of that same year.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
After the war the Coast Guard continued to develop helicopter operations with the cutter fleet by practicing with the icebreakers. Cutters designed specifically to work with helicopters would not enter service until the mid-1960s. Here an Air Force Flying Banana lands on board a platform built over the quarterdeck of CGC Westwind in 1956.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
Mackinaw and an Air Station Traverse City Sikorsky HO4S conduct helicopter landing operations on the Great Lakes circa 1953. Click here for more information on the famous CGC Mackinaw.
Original caption: "HO4S-3G, #1323. CONTRACT NOAS 57-408. 600 LB. HOIST INSTALLATION. (STFD)."; 23 July 1957; Photo No. S-22857; photographer unknown (Sikorsky photo). Taken from Sikorsky A/c Addendum No. 777 to SR-6J-7 "Contract Design Data Requirements Model HO4S-3G, Contract Noa(s) 57-408" photographs, 7-23-57.
Click here for more information on the HO4S. The ability to hoist a survivor while hovering over him was key to the helicopter's coming domination of aerial SAR operations and the Coast Guard, under Captain Frank Erickson's direction, led that effort.
Original caption: "INSTRUCTIONS FOR USING HELICOPTER RESCUE BASKET: The helicopter rescue basket was designed to clear the door of the cabin with the hoist two-blocked. If a shackle is used sued [sic] with the basket it will be below the level of the door when two-blocked making it necessary to tip the basket to bring it in the door. In the process of sliding it in the cabin it frequently becomes unhooked from the shackle therefore the first instruction is DO NOT USE A SHACKLE WITH THIS BASKET."
The culmination of Frank Erickson's drive and determination led to the creation of the rescue basket as the means of choice to conduct aerial hoist rescues.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
President Harry S. Truman paid a visit to San Francisco sometime in 1951. Here he deplanes after landing at Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco. The President's aircraft, a Douglas VC-118, was named "The Independence" after the President's hometown. Note the eagle's head painted across the forward fuselage and the tail feathers painted on the aircraft's tail.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
During a pre-flight warm up and test at Argentia, a Coast Guard PB-1G Flying Fortress prepares for a 9-hour International Ice Patrol [IIP] flight over the North Atlantic. After the war fixed-wing aircraft took over IIP missions from the cutter fleet since it was a more practical, timely and cost effective method of charting the region's icebergs.
Click here for more information on the Coast Guard's PB-1Gs and their many Coast Guard duties.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
The crew of a Coast Guard PB-1G based at Air Station Elizabeth City.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
Many services developed Jet-Assisted-Take-Off (JATO) rocket packs to get a seaplane/amphibian airborne as quickly as possible. But LT John Vukic's tragic crash off the coast of China (his PBM crashed during takeoff when one JATO packs failed) highlighted the inherent danger of every take off and landing at sea. That danger led to the demise of the seaplane in U.S. Government service. The Soviet Union and Japan, however, continued to develop seaplanes for government service.
No caption/date/photo number; photographer unknown.
Grumman's UF-1G/2G (HU-16E) Albatross at Air Station Elizabeth City. The UF-1G first entered Coast Guard service in May, 1951. The Coast Guard acquired over 80 "Goats" as they were affectionately known to their crews and these versatile amphibians remained in service until 1983. Click here for more information on the Coast Guard's Goats. Click here for more photos of this venerable amphibian.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
The Coast Guard's last Boeing PB-1G Flying Fortress alongside the service's first Lockheed HC-130B Hercules, at Air Station Elizabeth City, circa late 1959 or early 1960.
No caption/date/photo number; photographer unknown.
Another view of an early HC-130; note the period paint scheme. The aircraft's versatility has kept it in service throughout the world today, including with the nation's oldest continuous sea service.
Scanned from the Grumman publicity pamphlet entitled: "New Laurels for an Old Dependable: The Grumman Albatross". The caption reads: "Alongside the record-breaking Albatross are (l to r) Chief Taggart, RAdm [sic] Olsen, Cdr Fenlon, Lt Senn, Mr. Johnson, VAdm [sic] Lee, and (kneeling) Cdr Dahlgren." 24 October 1962.
In August through October 1962 Coast Guard aviators established a number of aviation records while flying the UF-2 Albatross.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer unknown.
A Sikorsky HO4S (HH-19) Chickasaw undertakes a rescue at sea (probably a demonstration); note the hydraulic hoist apparatus capable of lifting up to 600 pounds. At this time there were no rescue swimmers; aircrew would lower a rescue basket or sling near a survivor who would then have to crawl into the basket on their own--a difficult proposition for those who might be injured or suffering from hypothermia. Click here for more information on the HH-19.
Original caption: "U.S. Coast Guard helicopter at wreck of Boeing 720-B, 43 mi west of Miami. Northwest Orient Airlines jet with 35 passengers, Chicago to Miami flight. 35 killed. CG helicopter pilot LCDR James Dillon, USCG, located the wreck."; 14 February 1963; no photo number; photo by PH1 P. Meyer.
Coast Guard helicopters have proven their abilities over land as well as water. Their work searching for and locating crash sites or participating in SAR missions have been a cornerstone of the service's rotary-wing history.
Original caption: "COUNTRY DOCTOR -- AIR AGE STYLE. Once a month the Coast Guard's Sikorsky S-58 helicopter flies a doctor around the Louisiana bayous country for calls on enlisted men and their dependents living at isolated light and boat stations. Here Lt. Lowell T. York, assistant medical officer and flight surgeon for the Naval Air Station at New Orleans, La., visits Head of Passes, a critical light station at the mouth of the Mississippi River. He is talking with Petty Officer and Mrs. James W. Figueira and their two-year-old daughter, Jean. The Figueiras, who are from Beaumont, Tex., are one of three families on the island. The S-58 lands in their yard. The copter crew stands at the left."; RELEASE - SUNDAY, January 31, 1960; Photo by Sikorsky Aircraft; Frank J. Delear, Public Relations Manager.
The next helicopter evolution for the Coast Guard was Sikorsky's HUS-1G (HH-34F) "Seahorse." Click here for more information on the HUS-1G. This particular helicopter's mission--transporting medical personnel to a remote area, gives you some idea of the variety of tasks fulfilled by the Coast Guard, many of which the helicopter greatly facilitated. Other more obscure missions included flying inland patrols in concert with ATF agents searching for illicit whiskey stills!
Official caption: "New HH-52A Turbine Flying Boat Helicopter, Stratford, Conn."; photo dated 9 January 1963; no photo number; photographer not listed.
The Coast Guard's first HH-52A on the tarmack of Sikorsky's Stratford Manufacturing facility. This is the helicopter that truly made rotary-wing aviation the backbone of Coast Guard aviation. The HH-52A's versatility and reliability were legendary.
HH-52A Helicopter information brochure, January, 1963.
The early 1960s ushered in a new era in Coast Guard aviation activities. The new Sikorsky S-62 (designated as the HH-52A) entered service beginning in 1962. The Coast Guard purchased 99 of these versatile helicopters "off-the-shelf" from Sikorsky and they remained in service until 1989.
No official caption; photo dated 2 September 1965; Photo No. 5CGD-090265-07; photographer not listed.
The newest Sikorsky near its immediate predecessor at Air Station Elizabeth City. Captain Peter Prindle, USCG (Ret.), noted that "The original Air Station hangar 49 has the air field control tower mounted above the rear of the building, and along with Port Angeles, was one of two Air Stations with Coast Guard air traffic controllers."
No official caption; photo dated 7 July 1964; photo number 8CGD-070764-2; photo by R. F. Gliniecki.
A month after the new 210-foot medium endurance cutter Reliance (WPG/WMEC-615) was commissioned on 20 June 1964 she was conducting drills with a new HH-52A. The 210s were designed specifically with helicopter operations in mind--note that she does not have a traditional funnel but vented exhaust gases out her transom. This was done to aid pilot visibility although that arrangement proved to be problematic for habitability and naval engineering issues.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
Helicopter operations with icebreakers continue to this day. Here Westwind prepares for an HH-52A landing in Gravesend Bay on 6 March 1964.
Official caption: "Two HH-52A U.S. Coast Guard helicopters fly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii." Photo No. SDAN: DN-SC-92-05757; photo dated March 1987; photo by OS2 John Bouvia.
Although stationed in Hawaii, these two HH-52s have been painted in high visibility colors for temporary service with Coast Guard icebreakers.
Original caption: "Equipped with a powerful external winch, the Jolly Green Giants could extract a downed pilot without landing. Here, an aircrew practices lowering a jungle penetrator."; no date/photo number; photographer unknown. U.S. Air Force photo.
Ten Coast Guard aviators volunteered for an exchange program with the U.S. Air Force's combat aerial rescue squadrons serving in South Vietnam. There they conducted combat search-and-rescue flights with their Air Force brethren, losing one of their number, LT Jack Rittichier, who perished along with his three-man Air Force crew, after his Jolly Green Giant was hit by enemy fire. Click here for more information on LT Rittichier.
"Dad's Shot Up Helicopter."; July, 1968. Eagan family photograph.
The exchange program with the Air Force provided Coast Guard aviators with a chance to fly in a combat environment and each mission was extremely dangerous. Here LT Lance Eagan's "shot up" Jolly Green Giant rests on the helo pad at Danang, South Vietnam after participating in the rescue of "Scotch 03" on 1-2 July 1968. Eagan's HH-3E had sustained 40 hits from enemy fire.
Click here for more information on the Coast Guard aviators, including LT Eagan, who served in Vietnam.
Original caption: "HU-16E 'Albatross' with new stripe from U.S. Coast Guard Air Station, Brooklyn, N.Y., on patrol."; June, 1969; Photo No. G-APA-0627-69 (1); photographer unknown.
Note the new high-visibility paint scheme that incorporated the Coast Guard's unique stripe, authorized for use on 6 April 1967.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
Although the rescue basket and hoist had been developed and put into use by the time the HH-52 entered service the Coast Guard did not have the trained personnel to actually jump in the water to assist injured or incapacitated survivors. The only exception to this was if the co-pilot volunteered to jump in (and the aircraft commander approved)--the aircrewman had to stay on board the aircraft to operate the hoist; consequently survivors were required to get into the lowered basket themselves. Some units experimented with what became known as rescue swimmers but it was not until the 1980s that the service formally instituted a rescue swimmer program.
Click here for an account of the earliest experiments conducted by a Coast Guard unit regarding this issue. They referred to their "creation" as SARWET [Sea/Air Rotary Wing Evacuation Team]. Click here for a history of the Rescue Swimmer Program as it was officially adopted after the tragic sinking of the SS Marine Electric in 1983.
Caption reads: "ASM3 Flythe, ASM3 Fithian, ASM1 Woolford[,] ADM3 Gordon, and ASM2 Ober became the first operational Rescue Swimmers on March 5th 1985 at Air Station Elizabeth City, NC. AST3 Warner, AST3 Pierce, AST3 Tartal, & AST3 James of Class 78-10 marks the 25th year of the CG Helicopter Rescue Swimmer Program."; photo dated 2010; no photo number; photographer not listed.
Tom Lutton, Marty Flesh and Richard Green at the delivery of the first operational HH-3 to the Coast Guard on 6 January 1969 at Air Station New Orleans. With the acquisition of the twin-turbine powered HH-3 the Coast Guard had a reliable and versatile amphibious helicopter capable of great range, capacity and endurance. The service acquired 40 HH-3s and they remained in service until the early 1990s.
No caption/date/photo number; photographer unknown.
Bobby Wilks, the Coast Guard's first African-American aviator, poses in front of HH-3F CG-1472. Click here for more information on Captain Wilks.
Original caption: "LAST MILITARY AMPHIBIOUS AIRPLANE RETIRES: Cape Cod, Mass.--Cape Cod Air Station crew members render honors to the retired HU-16E 7250 as it makes its final taxi for take off. (Official CG photo by PA1 Joseph P. Lombardo)."; 10 March 1983; Photo Release No. 017-83.
The end of an era as the last fixed-wing amphibian in the Coast Guard air fleet retired from service.
Official caption: "The Coast Guard's HU-25 Falcon aircraft."; 30 November 1999; Photo No. 85724; photographer not listed.
In 1967 the Coast Guard began a search for an aircraft to replace the HU-16 Goats--a search that ultimately went on for 10 years. After evaluating over 30 different aircraft Secretary of Transportation William T. Coleman, Jr., and Admiral William Siler, Commandant, announced on 5 January 1977 the award of a contract for 41 Dassault-Breguet Mystere 20s (marketed by Falcon Jet Corporation as the Falcon 20G), which the service designated as the HU-25 Interceptor. Formal deliveries commenced on 19 February 1982. The Falcons were used for SAR and law enforcement missions.
The Aérospatiale HH-65 replaced the service's venerable HH-52. The HH-3s remained in service for a few more years but once they were retired the Coast Guard no longer had an aircraft specifically designed to land on water. Click here for a higher-resolution copy of this image.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer unknown.
The HH-65A acquisition process garnered considerable controversy at the time with domestic manufacturers decrying the HH-65's foreign origins. Nevertheless this short-range helicopter remains in service in upgraded form to this day.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer unknown.
HH-65As from Air Station New Orleans fly over their air station's namesake city in the early 1990s. In 2005 they, along with dozens of other Coast Guard aircraft (including personal aircraft flown by Coast Guard Auxiliary pilots) from air stations all over the country participated in the greatest aerial rescue in Coast Guard history after Hurricane Katrina came ashore. During Katrina rescue operations those aircraft and their crews flew a record 4,945 sorties and rescued or evacuated 12,535 survivors.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
On 14 September 1989 the Coast Guard formally accepted its first Sikorsky HH-60J Jayhawk during a roll out ceremony presided over by the Commandant, Admiral Paul Yost. The ceremony took place at the Sikorsky Aircraft facility in Stratford, Connecticut. The HH-60 replaced the last amphibious aircraft in the Coast Guard's inventory, the HH-3.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 authorized the Coast Guard's aerial interdiction efforts against drug smuggling. To support that effort the service acquired a number of platforms for reconnaissance, enforcement and coordination efforts. These included Navy E2C Hawkeyes, tethered blimps, and powered gliders. Here is a Schweizer RG-8A twin-engine glider in flight, circa 1990. The Coast Guard used single and twin-engine versions of Schweizer's powered glider for law enforcement surveillance patrols. The program was discontinued in 2000.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer unknown.
A Grumman E2C Hawkeye airborne early-warning surveillance aircraft painted in Coast Guard markings. The Coast Guard acquired eight such aircraft and they were assigned to the newly commissioned CG Airborne Warning Squadron One based initially out of Norfolk (later transferred to a new facility at St. Augustine). Unfortunately one aircraft, CG-3501, crashed at Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico on 14 August 1990 killing all four crew. The Squadron was disestablished the following year. Click here for more information.
No official caption/date/photo number; photographer not listed.
The Coast Guard experimented with placing an E2C Hawkeye's radome on a C-130 airframe and the modified aircraft was designated EC-130V. The experiment was an effort to create a reconnaissance and command-and-control aircraft primarily in response to the service's renewed emphasis on interdicting smuggling through the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Budget pressures led to an end of the 11-month experiment and this airframe was transferred to the Air Force.
Original caption: "Out at Sea (April 1)--A Mexican naval vessel, the Coast Guard Cutter PAPAW and an HU-25 aircraft conduct a search and rescue exercise in the Spring of 1999."; Photo dated 1 April 1999; Photo No. 115079; Photo by PA2 Patrick Montgomery.
The backbone of the Coast Guard's fixed-wing fleet throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and early twenty-first century remained both the HC-130 Hercules and the HU-25 Falcon. Air Station Miami recently decommissioned their last HU-25s and so ended that air station's "jet age." Its replacement, the HC-144A Ocean Sentry, is a propeller-driven aircraft. Click here for more information on the Ocean Sentry. The remaining Coast Guard HU-25s will be decommissioned by 2014.
Official caption: "Rodney E. Slater, Secretary of Transportation, addresses the media during a news conference to announce previously classified counternarcotics actions in the Caribbean basin, record seizures and unveiling of the Coast Guard's armed helicopters (a part of Operation New Frontier). Operation New Frontier is the Coast Guard's first deployment of armed helicopters designed to stop small high-speed smuggling vessels (Go-Fasts) carrying narcotics bound for the U.S."; photo dated 9 September 1999; Photo No. CDS01880; photo by PA1 Telfair H. Brown."
In the late 1990s, for the first time since World War II, the Coast Guard began arming helicopters in an effort to combat speedboats (referred to as "go-fasts") carrying contraband that attempted to outrun any waterborne pursuit. Up until this time the smugglers knew that Coast Guard helicopters were unarmed and were therefore unable to force them to stop. The helicopters were leased MD900s that were designated MH-90 Enforcers. They carried airborne snipers as part of their crew. The experiment proved to be successful and the squadron of armed helicopters was commissioned as HITRON. Click here for more information.
Original caption: "The Coast Guard has recently unveiled its new MH90 Enforcer helicopter along with its Over-the-Horizon Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (OTH RIB) which is specifically designed to encounter the 'go-fast' drug smuggling boat."; photo dated 13 September 1999; Photo No. 98445; no photographer listed.
Back to Volume 2
Post-2000: CGVI
Volume 4: Unheralded
Aviators, Air Stations & Rescues
(Forthcoming)
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