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USMC CH-53E Super Stallion Fleet Is In Inexcusably Horrible Disrepair

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
Think there are 3 or 4 squadrons worth of USMC CH-53D's that were put in the boneyard within the last 10 years - not sure of the preservation status.
 

ChuckMK23

FERS and TSP contributor!
pilot
"In addition to resetting each aircraft, the service is paying a contractor $6.6 million to restore two retired Sea Dragons that have spent the past decade in storage at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, also known as the “aircraft boneyard.” The helicopters will be converted for use as Super Stallions and used by a Marine training squadron, freeing two aircraft to rejoin an operational squadron, officials said."

I assumed (wrongly) that this included conversion to Marine standard
 

Alto53

Member
pilot
I was with HC-4 (NAS Sigonella) when we turned in our CH-53Es, for further transfer to the USMC, and we transitioned to MH-53Es in the mid-90s. Aircraft are completely similar for the logistics role, other than the fuel capacity (20K for the MH and 15k for the CH) and a few odd items associated with the towing mission which we removed. Can't speak for the all the avionic upgrades since, but flying wise they were identical, other than a slight little extra bubble of air on final touchdown caused by the larger MH sponsons. For the RAG mission, shouldn't make any difference.
 
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