What Makes Us “Exceptional”

There are three attributes of Coast Guard rotary wing aircrews that few other helicopter aircrews can match, the combination of which separates our community from most other rotary wing communities:

1. A full-time crew make up that includes the most capable maritime rescuers in the world, Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers.
2. Hoist operators (flight mechanics) that can lead a team of rescue swimmers, and pilots through a wide spectrum of challenging hoists.
3. Aircrews that can depart, transit, arrive on scene, hover, and recover in challenging aviation weather.

As “Forging Airmanship” iterates, I am excited to team with accomplished flight mechanics and rescue swimmers to address principles and methods associated with attributes one and two. However, initially, I will explore pilot centric principles, techniques, and considerations associated with attribute three in a series of posts titled “weather flying.”

For our community, challenging aviation weather can be heavy weather produced by hurricanes, tropical storms, or large lows that have hurricane characteristics (Pacific Northwest and more so in Alaska). It can also be convective activity or icing, which our aircrews manage largely by avoiding it (like all other rotary wing operators). The severe aviation weather I will focus on as our mission requires us to fly in it the most, is low visibility and/or low ceilings. Often, this low visibility coupled with darkness results in minimal to no visual cues. Because we fly offshore and can clearly define terrain and obstacles (shoreline, vessels, oil rigs, etc.) using RADAR, we regularly fly in low visibility conditions that other helicopter operators do not. Subsequently, decades of operating in the low visibility maritime environment have led to many lessons learned that, if heeded, provide the capability and safety margins necessary for flying successfully in these conditions.