Rotor Review issue 127 focuses on a mission that is shared amongst all Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine helicopters: Search and Rescue.  As helo bubbas, we know the SAR mission well.  From  our beginnings in flight training over Blackwater Bay, during the Rescue Swimmer School in Pensacola, or at the Aviation Technical Training Center in Elizabeth City, we studied and trained the SAR mission.  Continuing into our specific platforms, any aviator quickly recognizes that regardless of the other mission sets that define our specific capabilities, any helicopter can become a search asset.   Plus, if it is equipped with a hoist and a hoist operator, its crew can pluck a survivor out of the water.  Since we share this common mission across the community, it was no surprise that after announcing the SAR focus for this issue, the editors welcomed a flood of exciting content from all reaches of the community.

Our Coast Guard and Navy Station SAR commands shine as they offer terrific recaps of recent rescues.  Their stories tell of exciting rescues in areas often unseen by the Navy and Marine Corps fleet communities, such as Lake Michigan and the Yosemite areas.

In addition this issue’s Focus section, you will find some great articles showcasing how the community’s is at the leading edge of naval aviation.  The Navy’s HSM and HSC communities are both working hard to expand their capabilities and relevancies in the fleet.  In our Feature section, you will learn how HSM-71 led the testing efforts for the MH-60R’s employment of the APKWS, a rocket-based weapons system that is new to Navy helicopters.  Plus, as a Command Update, the Spartans of HSM-70 explain the improvements they have made to Navy helicopters’ relevance in the Carrier Air Wing.  

The Navy’s HSC community is polishing the MH-60S’s expanded mission sets to maximize many of the platform’s capabilities.  In the Feature section, HSC-25’s article reviews its involvement in FORAGER FURY II and HSC-9 tag-teams lessons learned with its sister squadron, HSM-70, to offer an insight into improvements in their interoperability within CVW-8.

Finally, the Marines of VMM-364 provide an historical command update in this issue.  The Purple Foxes flew the CH-46E Sea Knight (A.K.A. The Phrog) into retirement, lying to rest a platform that has been in service since the Vietnam War.  HMH-462 also submitted a great recap of some overland external logistics training.

I hope you enjoy the issue.  Keep the content flowing!

LT Ash Preston, USN
Editor-in-Chief
Rotor Review