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Should I stay or should I go? Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love HSC.

Gents,

Could anybody tell me why the tail wheel's position of Sierra is worse than that of all Bravo, Foxtrot or Romeo? And for what the reason Sierra resembles in this Army 60' family?
 
Pags said:
It's not worse, it's different.
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ChuckMK23 said:
en.wikipedia.org

Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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Thanks but isn't such design less compatible with small combattants' helipads? Aside, the forces applied to a tail beam in such arrangement of the wheel during deck landings may cause fatigue threshold sooner, right? Sorry for than naive asking but Russian Kamov Helix and its ancestors all had 4-legs "donkey" gears, just like this poor animal, to prevent deck slipping if one of main rotors fails which may turn helo into whirling toy, so no one here ever experimented with three-gears scheme nor considered Mil's "normal" helicopters to be routinely embarked on the ships.
 
Max the Mad Russian said:
Thanks but isn't such design less compatible with small combattants' helipads? Aside, the forces applied to a tail beam in such arrangement of the wheel during deck landings may cause fatigue threshold sooner, right? Sorry for than naive asking but Russian Kamov Helix and its ancestors all had 4-legs "donkey" gears, just like this poor animal, to prevent deck slipping if one of main rotors fails which may turn helo into whirling toy, so no one here ever experimented with three-gears scheme nor considered Mil's "normal" helicopters to be routinely embarked on the ships.
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It's a non-issue. It felt a little weird on the DDG decks which slope forward, but overall it was never a topic that came up.

On a side note, I was looking at the wiki @ChuckMK23 posted...anyone know what the letter in front of the type rating means? A, C, etc? For example C/S-70. Surely it's not Airplane and Chopper.....Coffin? There's probably a list somewhere?
 
Max the Mad Russian said:
Thanks but isn't such design less compatible with small combattants' helipads? Aside, the forces applied to a tail beam in such arrangement of the wheel during deck landings may cause fatigue threshold sooner, right? Sorry for than naive asking but Russian Kamov Helix and its ancestors all had 4-legs "donkey" gears, just like this poor animal, to prevent deck slipping if one of main rotors fails which may turn helo into whirling toy, so no one here ever experimented with three-gears scheme nor considered Mil's "normal" helicopters to be routinely embarked on the ships.
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It's a better configuration for what they thought the Sierra was going to spend most of its time doing.....bouncing around on the ground.
 
wlawr005 said:
It's a better configuration for what they thought the Sierra was going to spend most of its time doing.....bouncing around on the ground.
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I'm not sure it was that thought-out. The story we always got was the Army had ordered 300 more aircraft than they needed and it coincided with the Navy's desire to replace the 46 which HC had been using for Log Runs and VERTREP. Playing in the desert pretending to do CAS and SEAL INFILs came later. Perhaps the saltier rotorheads around here have more insight into the acquisition process back then...
 
wlawr005 said:
It's a better configuration for what they thought the Sierra was going to spend most of its time doing.....bouncing around on the ground.
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The tail wheel is also less than ideal for single spot ships, but its not a deal breaker.
 
Red Five is correct. H-46s were dropping like flies - multiple engine failures (think you needed 3 x IOT become a HAC) and maintenance requirements were thru the roof. This was also a part of the post-Desert Storm RIF.

The history according to me -- Originally, there wasn't that much thought to be spending time in the dirt. Of the 8 x 60S going to CVW squadrons - only 5 x would have the kits to make them a true block 3 (and those would likely be swapped - 52 kits total if my memory serves me correctly). This was not too far off from an old HS squadron - 2-3 x HH60Hs and about 5 x crews. Those crews focused on CSAR, due to the requirement to handle CSAR for independent CSG ops. In 2001, it took 2 x squadrons to handle the CSAR requirements in the opening days of OEF. SOF ops, pre-9/11 were pretty rare - mainly HVBSS for Iraq Oil Embargo stuff and when SEALs actually deployed on ships. The CSAR crews were the ones doing the SOF stuff. The old syllabus had ~ 6 total NSW cards, 12 x CSAR cards to Level 3 - so you can see the focus.

As OEF/OIF went much longer than planned - The number of block 3 kits for the 60S increased to a buy of 200+ kits. At the same time, a group (of an HS background and jealous of the HCS-4/5 deployment), used less than gentle methods to make Expeditionary and CVW one and the same, tactically in hopes of building a larger tactically community that would be used by the larger Joint enterprise. OSD had initiated a number of 'how to fix the rotary wing shortfall across the Joint Force' studies - and there was possibly (my supposition) a thought that HSC could save the day. That group saw the NAAD detachment as the first of a series of wins.

An emphasis on CAS started ~ late 2000s when CAS was a huge focus for our fixed wing brothers - IMHO, then NSAWC and/or SEAWOLF thought that CAS should be in their bailiwick, so they began an emphasis on CAS. The 'why' has always bothered me on this - as HS had never been tasked to do CAS. In essence, a decision had been made to grow the mission set - without a 'likely payoff' to community utilization of the capability. I never liked it being jammed down my throat - my thought - I am lift for the team and have only enough firepower to defend myself / cover the team IOT give other platforms time to set geometry for an attack. Note - this was well before the M197/rocket system came online and the FAC/FIAC craziness.

Add these together with a shotgun marriage of CSAR/NSW HS mentality with the HC log/SAR mentality and a lack of performance of the minesweeping systems/LCS- and you get what has been discussed on the previous 46 pages of this thread (amongst another multitudes of threads here)..

This may be the Howard Zinn version of HS and HC becoming HSC. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves.
 
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Sonog said:
The tail wheel is also less than ideal for single spot ships, but its not a deal breaker.
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It helped when community corporate knowledge took in the idea of being ready to jump on the toe brakes after shipboard landings on DDGs. With the Seahawk-style landing gear footprint I think you landed a couple feet farther back from the hangar doors, and if the parking brake didn't hold and the aircraft started rolling downhill after landing then that gave you a bit longer to react. With the 60S/Blackhawk footprint you land a little bit farther forward on those decks, or no?

I used to think the tail wheel placement was a big deal, and the difference does make sure life easier, but my opinion gradually changed to what @Sonog is saying.

Regarding the DDG-51/79 class flight decks, with the old ass radar in the 60B, I always thought the ridiculously low freeboard and sloping flight deck helps make a smaller radar cross section thing was pretty silly. I'm not arguing that the difference wasn't quantifiable on paper/computer/in a lab, but the DDG-51 class still made a good sized smudge on every radar sweep. Pretty sure the Navy lost money on this one when you add up all the rotor blade tip caps that were sacrificed on hangar doors and aircraft that were damaged (or worse) by "rogue waves" crashing over the flight deck.
 
Jim123 said:
It helped when community corporate knowledge took in the idea of being ready to jump on the toe brakes after shipboard landings on DDGs. With the Seahawk-style landing gear footprint I think you landed a couple feet farther back from the hangar doors, and if the parking brake didn't hold and the aircraft started rolling downhill after landing then that gave you a bit longer to react. With the 60S/Blackhawk footprint you land a little bit farther forward on those decks, or no?
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Yup. Technique was to set the brake in the landing checks but be ready to immediately jump on them after landing if they don't hold. Just became second nature after a while. Never had an issue with the nets on a Flight II. Did almost have my copilot (during HAC/HAC recurrency) almost put the tail wheel into the Flight I capstan after ignoring the aircrewman's tail calls.

Also remember, on the 9-month deployment fly-off, the SDO putting "TURN OFF THE PARKING BRAKE" in big red letters on the briefing cards was a +1.

@hscs 's recollection tracks with my knowledge of HSC's history. The sourcing to the joint staff/GFM piece was, as I understood it, short-circuited by Aviation Flags. I was at the NHA Flag Panel when then N98 ADM Miller essentially said "Land dets are expensive, take you out of the Navy Chain of Command, stress the supply system, and don't help Naval Aviation's mission." Add in the SOCOM/NAVAIR fight over 84/85 circa 2014, that didn't help. Water under the bridge now, but I'd love to hear an accounting of how that all went down.
 
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