Rotor Review

Current Issue:

Rotor Review Issue 127: Naval Helicopter Search and Rescue: Anyplace, Anytime.

Always operating in a dynamic stateside and deployed environment, the naval helicopter community must continually adapt to better serve our nation by way of changing mission sets and threat levels.  As our community continues to adopt and develop our tactical doctrine to support the fleet, we must never lose sight of our need to execute the one mission that is shared among Coast Guard, Navy, and Marine Corps helicopters alike: Search and Rescue (SAR).  Igor Sikorsky said it best in his famous quote, "If you are in trouble anywhere in the world, an airplane can fly over and drop flowers, but a helicopter can land and save your life."  The only way to ensure those words ring true is to continue to make time to practice and refine our SAR capabilities.  No matter the mission, no matter the location, we must always be SAR-capable.
Focus Intro by LT Ryan Yonkman, USN

Last Issue:

Rotor Review Issue 126: Crossing Interagency Boundaries: Leveraging Partnerships, Operational Prowess, and the Latest Technology to expand Community Horizons.

More often than not, unit level training requires units to develop war-time scenarios to simulate operations with outside entities such as ground personnel, airborne control units, or a unit’s own air wing or strike group assets.  Most aviators would probably agree that working with actual entities, vice notional assets, brings a new level of value to the event.  The training and operational value of interagency evolutions is certainly high for the individual, but the value extends well beyond the individual crewmembers.  
Units, as a whole, gain experience through lessons learned and by refining Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs).  Furthermore, a unit’s regard amongst the interagency community as a competent, professional, and capable group of warfighters is built upon the work it does with these outside services and agencies.  The hard work of these units, whose operational prowess and technological expertise is put to the test across the globe, also lays the foundation for the naval helicopter community’s improved interagency partnerships worldwide.
Although the aforementioned opportunities are not a new concept to our community, helicopter squadrons fleet-wide are making great strides in the last several months in building professional partnerships, showing off their elite operational capabilities, and employing advanced weapons systems.