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USN SH-3 Sea King Retirement

Does anyone know when the last of the SH-3s were retired? I know that the UH-3s were retired in 2006. Google says that it was sometime in the mid to late 90s.
 

ChuckMK23

FERS and TSP contributor!
pilot
HC-85, a reserve squadron, operated UH-3H's until early 2006 and with the squadron's disestablishment, so was the H-3 retired from US Navy service.

USN SH/UH-3's we're long and tooth and in service much too long and it's last 20 years of service saw a minimal investments in the aircraft. It was obsolete by the 1990's. Contrasted with the aircraft operated by the UK, Australia and Canada as well as Italy which were well maintained and received the constant stream of avionics and survival and safety updates.

Obviously VH-3's live on in HMX land, benefiting from substantial rotor blade gearbox, engine and avionics improvements that came out of the commercial s61 fleet. Department of State also invested in modernizing former USN H-3's for service in Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa where they were quite successful and had remarkable uptime and availability with state of the art avionics and weather radar.
 

IKE

Nerd Whirler
pilot
I don't, but I might know someone who helped HS transition to the F/H - I'll ask.

Also found the below from this website
As of 23 September 1994, with the disestablishment of HS-12 at Naval Air Field Atsugi, Japan, the "Foxtrot," as the SH-60F has come to be known, had completely repalced the SH-3H in the Pacific Fleet.

This jibes with what I recall from my first Skipper who was a JO around 94-95 and was one of the last SH-3 pilots.
 

SynixMan

HKG Based Artificial Excrement Pilot
pilot
Contributor
Didn’t the desert ducks fly them until ~2006?

@ea6bflyr flew impromptu form off one a few years back. I think they have some handicam of me!
 

DanMa1156

Is it baseball season yet?
pilot
Contributor
Didn’t the desert ducks fly them until ~2006?

@ea6bflyr flew impromptu form off one a few years back. I think they have some handicam of me!
I had a Department Head who flew them on his JO tour. I think his timing was pretty standard - went JO, then learned the MH-60S to become an FRS instructor, and then did an IA or Disassociated tour IIRC... So, backup the timeline, he would have started his DH tour in like 2014 maybe 2013... 4-6 years prior to that pegs it as 2007-2010ish. Yikes. Did we seriously have them that long?
 
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HokiePilot

Well-Known Member
pilot
Contributor
I went to API in April of 2007 and I remember getting picked up in the Bay by a NAS Pensacola station SAR H-3
 

IKE

Nerd Whirler
pilot
As the OP stated, there was about a 10-year gap between SH-3H sundown and UH-3H sundown (interwebs agree), and of course, the Presidential team (also Navy) still has VH-3s.
 

thump

Well-Known Member
pilot
(Then) HSL-51 Det 11 was flying H-3s for VIP transport through 2006 or so before transitioning that mission to modified Foxtrots.
 

DanMa1156

Is it baseball season yet?
pilot
Contributor
As the OP stated, there was about a 10-year gap between SH-3H sundown and UH-3H sundown (interwebs agree), and of course, the Presidential team (also Navy) still has VH-3s.
I can't say I realized there was a difference until this thread.
 
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