Show-Stopper Chopper Debuts

Calling it the first of many changes that will transform the Navy, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark unveiled the “helicopter of the future” Friday at North Island Naval Air Station here.

The MH-60S Knighthawk is not your father’s helicopter.

At $15 million a copy, the Knighthawk, a cousin of the Army’s Black Hawk helicopter, has the latest in electronics, ergonomics and cockpit information display systems.

It also can be reconfigured with different equipment and gear to perform a variety of missions, from cargo-hauling, search-and-rescue and submarine hunting to special warfare support and disaster relief.

There are systems designed to make flying and landing easier than with older helicopters, primarily the Navy workhorse, the Vietnam-era CH-46 Sea Knights. Other features, such as a more shock-absorbent seat, are aimed at increasing chances that crew members can survive a crash.

“It’s like going from your father’s old Cadillac, which was great in its day, to a brand-new Porsche,” said Lt. Angela Schedel, a Sea Knight pilot who now teaches others to fly the Knighthawk.

The Knighthawk, built by Sikorsky with a cockpit design by Lockheed Martin, is key to the Navy’s long-range plan to reduce from seven to two the kinds of helicopters in its fleet. The Navy has decided it can no longer afford seven kinds of helicopters, each with its own specialized missions, maintenance needs and flying idiosyncrasies.

In a ceremony complete with a symbolic flyover of Knighthawks, Clark handed a flight book to Cmdr. Sherman Lupton, commanding officer of Helicopter Combat Support Squadron 3. Pilots and enlisted crew members have been training on the Knighthawk for months in preparation for deployment to the Persian Gulf this spring.

“Helo-air [helicopter aviation] as of this moment is at the forefront of the Navy’s transformation,” Clark said.

If the ceremony marked the debut of the Knighthawk, it was also a farewell for the Sea Knight, which the Navy hopes to phase out by 2004.

If the Sea Knight were a sailor, it would have a long row of hash marks on its sleeve for years of service and a chest of battle ribbons--as well as a couple of less-than-admirable things in its personnel record.

After joining the fleet in 1962, the Sea Knights saw service in Vietnam, Grenada, Lebanon and Operation Desert Storm. Sea Knights rescued Americans trapped in the U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu, Somalia, and are hauling supplies and personnel throughout Afghanistan in the U.S. war on terrorism.

But many of the Sea Knights are older than the Navy personnel and Marines that fly them, and maintenance and procurement of parts are headaches. During Desert Storm, too many Sea Knights were considered unworthy to fly.

“The [CH]-46 was a very nimble plane,” said retired Navy Capt. Steve Millikin, former commanding officer of a Sea Knight squadron. “But all good things have to end, and it’s time for it to go. But in its day . . . .”

Car comparisons were everywhere at Friday’s ceremony. Lt. Wes Cooper, a pilot of the Navy’s jumbo-sized CH-53E Super Stallion, said flying the lighter Knighthawk is like going from a sport-utility vehicle to a race car.

And, yes, there is a new-car smell to the Knighthawk.

“This is the neatest, newest thing out there,” said Schedel.