The Coast Guard HH-65 started its lifecycle today

19th

The Coast Guard HH-65 started its lifecycle today

November 2009

Click to enlarge

Often hailed as the “Tupper-Wolf,” or perhaps the plastic hanger queen in some situations, the Coast Guard’s HH-65 Dolphin airframe has become a staple of the Coast Guard image. And today in 1984 we, as the USCG, became the proud owners of the first accepted HH-65.

Today as we make our way through the oft touted and oft doubted Deepwater Acquisitions Project in an effort to further our capabilities you’ll take comfort in knowing that procurement time hasn’t really changed all that much. Don’t hold me to this but at the 10,000 foot level our timetable of the current projects could rival that of the acquisition of our first HH-65’s. It was 1979 when the CG selected the Eurocopter Daulphin to replace the Sikorsky HH-52A and nearly six years later, in 1985, it was introduced to service but only after being accepted in 1984… I’m sure we used the year (+/-) to do a little training.

Today we operate, I believe entirely, the “C” model of the Dolphin, and are in the midst of the Deepwater enhancement to give the aircraft its “M” designation. This “M” entitles us to call it an MH-65C- a Multi-Mission Cutter Helicopter. This particular aircraft is also the helo used by our Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON) replacing the Agusat MH-68A Stingray in February 2008- a very corporate looking helicopter in its own right. I encourage you to Google for further information or check out the Wikipedia page on said subject.

One more thing… don’t forget to enjoy your Thursday.

Ryan Erickson is a semi-regular contributor to USNI and can normally be found at ryanerickson.com; this post was written as an original piece for USNI.

Posted by Ryan Erickson in Aviation, Coast Guard, history
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