Inch: This a feasible idea?

[Ex-Dragoon]

We know we are short air dets for the Fleet. Apparently the USN and Reserves has an overabundance of crews that need training. Would it not make sense for a Seahawk Det to deploy with a CPF when required? I think it would also help develop closer ties between us the USN as well.

 

[Inch]

Well, we're actually getting 2 USN exchange pilots that will be on my Sea King course, I'm not sure their background but they're doing the pipeliner course the same as all nuggets do.  Re-treads do a slightly modified course since they've already held the quals at some point but are returning from a different community or a ground job.

I think it's a good idea in theory but might be a little hard to implement. I'm not sure if our CPFs are capable of supporting Seahawk operations, and neither are our technicians. Not to mention that the USN doesn't even fly off of ships as small as the CPFs. So we'd have to find a way of training their pilots to operate on our ships as well as getting their techs trained to do the job on the CPFs. If you're thinking of just sending a Seahawk crew up to fly the Sea Kings, you'll run into the same problem we're having and that's getting crews trained on Sea Kings and shipborne operations. We're running into shortfalls across the CF as far as aircrews are concerned, so getting our own bodies in is another part of the problem, though I think the reason for that is they don't want guys wasting away waiting for a Sea King course. It's kind of a vicious circle.

I do think it's a very interesting idea though, certainly one I haven't heard of around the Sqn.

Cheers

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

Well the OHPs are 4 m longer then the Halifax class (138 and 134 m respectively) and they can embark 2 on the OHPs. I am not sure how big the flight deck is but would 4 m make that big of a difference?

 

[Inch]

What's the width of the OHPs? 4m is about 13ft, it's not big compared to the size of the ship, but fairly significant compared to the size of the helos. Just looking at the dimensions of the Seahawk vs Sea King, rotor diameter - Seahawk 54ft, Sea King 60ft; overall length - Seahawk 64ft, Sea King 74ft. So the Seahawk is about 10ft shorter in length on a ship that's 13ft longer, a net of 23ft. That's how they fit 2 on there, the Seahawk is quite a bit smaller. It's really too bad we didn't have Seahawks, we could very easily just bring a USN det to fly our aircraft, or even bring their own toys. A Seahawk would certainly fit on the CPFs, but I'm not sure how the hangars and deck are setup and the extent of what changes would need to be made to support a different helo.