Navy Gets New High-Tech Choppers
David Axe | July 28, 2006
The Navy has received the first four of around 250 advanced helicopters worth $2.5 billion that will replace hundreds of Reagan-era aircraft and change the way it fights on, above and under the sea. Multi-role Helicopter Squadron 41, based at Naval Air Station North Island near San Diego, Calif., accepted four Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawks in January. HSM-41 is the West Coast training squadron for the Navy's light helicopter community. It feeds fully-trained aviators into co-located fleet squadrons that deploy one- or two-aircraft detachments aboard frigates, destroyers and cruisers. With the new helicopter, the squadron is also responsible for writing the training curriculum that will be used throughout the MH-60R's projected 25-year service life.
The squadron will begin training the first fleet pilots on the new aircraft in October.
"We know what the fleet wants at the end ... and we work backwards from that," says HSM-41 skipper Comm. J.C. Shaub, 46. He adds that the MH-60R crews will train to destroy submarines and surface ships, to transport people and supplies and conduct surveillance using radar and passive and infrared sensors.
The so-called "Romeo" is a development of the venerable Sikorsky SH-60B Seahawk (called "Bravos" by their crews), itself a derivative of the Army's UH-60A Blackhawk transport from the same company. The Bravo was designed to fly from warships on the open sea, searching out and destroying Soviet nuclear submarines using sonar buoys, a towed magnetic sensor and torpedoes. With the end of the Cold War, the Bravo force evolved, adopting new weapons and sensors to fight small boats on the surface and quiet diesel submarines in shallow coastal waters. By the late 1990s, steadily proliferating threats and an increasingly overloaded airframe meant that it was time for a replacement.
Enter the Romeo, which will replace not only the SH-60B but also the similar SH-60F as part of a plan to neck down the Navy's helicopter inventory from seven types to just two.
"It does everything the Bravo does ... but does it with more fidelity and better armament," HSM-41 skipper Comm. J.C. Shaub says of the Romeo.
The MH-60R looks a lot like its predecessor -- and the first four are in fact rebuilds of surplus Bravos -- but inside it's a completely new aircraft. A dipping sonar improves its ability to detect submarines. A modular cockpit based on digital displays means better situational awareness for a smaller crew. The Romeo is designed to switch between missions while in-flight and, in a pinch, to offload sensors and equipment so it can carry humanitarian supplies or evacuees. It can carry more weapons and has even been tested as an air-to-air fighter against low-flying small aircraft, according to HSM-41 executive officer Comm. Dennis Walsh, 42.
"These are exciting times," Walsh says.
Currently HSM-41 flies 10 Bravos in addition to the four Romeos. It will replace the older aircraft with 11 more Romeos by 2010, leaving the East Coast training squadron to soldier on with Bravos until the Navy transitions to an all-Romeo force sometime after 2012.