Lowflier summed it up nicely but I have yet to lose sight of the ground in any brownout now that I'm flying doors off. You can literally hover in solid brownout, lean out of the door, look down and have perfect sight of the ground.
The amazing part is that overwater you get almost no spray in the cockpit but tons more vis if you're doing HVBSS, etc.
Hopefully some day big Navy will wise up and let everyone else do it. 84/85 shouldn't be the only two considering how much of an improvement in helo control the pilot has in the terminal area.
Wish I could say the same for the M model with anhedral blade tips. Everything gets blown back at the aircraft during landings. We cracked 7 windshields doing dust landings in Albuquerque and in Kuwait. Of course both areas were moon landings, with talcum powder dust littered with small rocks. I would hate to be pegged by a rock while landing.
The other issue we had with doors off was while waiting for a call. With the ECS broken n the HH-60M, there is no ventilation in he back. We had to fly with the windows removed in the cabin. Keeping dust an wild life out of the aircraft while on the ramp was impossible. At Camp Echo in Iraq, we had pidgeons and doves building nests on our arcraft overnight. One even build a nest and laid an egg in the less than 24 hours between daily run ups. Dust storms were another issue.
It appears the Air Force had more resources for their unit. We barely had enough to man both aircraft, the TOC, and do minimal maintenance. They spent more time on the ground before taking off. We never took more than 10 minutes to takeoff once the 9 line came in.
The show is pretty good. i like it. What surprised me was out of the first 3 episodes, I haven't seen them do anything with 50 cals that we didn't do with no guns.