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Ocean Sentry vs. the Herc

careerO-3

careerO-3

New Member
pilot
I am switching over to the Coast Guard soon, and I was curious to hear any insights into the fixed wing platforms. It seems like everyone prefers the Herc to the Ocean Sentry. All I've heard about the HC-144A is that it is slow, and bad in icing. Does anybody have any reasons they prefer the Ocean Sentry over the Herc? Thanks in advance.
 
I like them both pretty good.








They make great top cover for offshore cases.


PS-Welcome to the Coastie Flying Club!!
 
The only things I can think of I prefer on the Ocean Sentry are the avionics suite, and the eventual choice of units. Other than that, it has issues (in my biased opinion, of course). If I am fully loaded with fuel and (and some cargo) in the Herc on a standard day, I can lose an engine and still fly a long way...my 3 engine radius is pretty great, in fact. Not so in the HC-144. If they are fully loaded and lose an engine, they are limited in how far they can fly...not sure of the numbers, but I've heard they raised a few eyebrows to new pilots going into the aircraft.



That being said, it is a better SAR platform than the Falcon (though the Falcon has been the prettiest plane in the fleet since we got it).
 
I only just now realized that the engines in the Ocean Sentry/HC-144 are cousins to the engines in the H-60 (and the newest Bells the Marines are flying). Heh. Learn something new every day.
 
Jim123 said:
I only just now realized that the engines in the Ocean Sentry/HC-144 are cousins to the engines in the H-60 (and the newest Bells the Marines are flying). Heh. Learn something new every day.
Click to expand...
Had you been to CoNA in San Diego in Feb, you would have learned this from the announcer... :icon_wink

As for the engine out issue: how often do you have engine failures/shutdowns these days? Fairly rare, isn't it?
 
Conversely, I never had an actual engine failure in more than a thousand hours in the P-3. Plenty of other weird crap plus a whole bunch of guys who did have engine failures while I was in P-3s but never had one myself.
 
Never had one just conk out. Ate a bird/pterodactyl that killed a motor, though.
 
It's more the props than the engines. Had four shutdowns (3 precautionary, 1 uncommanded) in 960 E-2 hours myself.
 
I've shut down 5 in 1000 hours in the P-3C, none in over 1000 hours in the T-6. I wouldn't want to be a long way from land with one underpowered engine.
 
I can't remember how many I've shut down...probably around 15 in 4k hours in the Chuck-130. I'm guessing 70% were prop issues, and the rest were engine issues. I'm not saying a three engine landing is an everyday occurence, but it isn't out of the ordinary. Luckily, it flies great with an engine shut down, which is why the plane is often described as "A three engine plane with a spare."

To my Marine brethren: Do you guys practice 3 engine and 2 engine landings? We do, but there are heavy restrictions on it in the Air Force.
 
HercDriver said:
I can't remember how many I've shut down...probably around 15 in 4k hours in the Chuck-130. I'm guessing 70% were prop issues, and the rest were engine issues. I'm not saying a three engine landing is an everyday occurence, but it isn't out of the ordinary. Luckily, it flies great with an engine shut down, which is why the plane is often described as "A three engine plane with a spare."

To my Marine brethren: Do you guys practice 3 engine and 2 engine landings? We do, but there are heavy restrictions on it in the Air Force.
Click to expand...

We practice 3-engine simulated in the plane, but not 2 engine simulated. The only time we will actually shut an engine down in the plane with no emergency is during an FCF. In the sim we will do actual shutdowns with 3-engine being the most common. During our initial training in the sim we practice 2 engine scenarios but after that we don't do it very often.
 
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