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Rescue helo upgrades lighten load, up stability

A key Coast Guard search-and-rescue helicopter program is in the midst of getting millions of dollars in upgrades that acquisitions experts say will help lighten loads, improve fuel efficiency and replace outdated equipment.

The overhaul to the service’s fleet of 102 H-65 Dolphins began in 2005 and is slated for completion by 2019. Coast Guard Air Station Atlantic City, N.J., hit a milestone in the upgrade process in mid-September when it became the first air station to convert all 10 of its Dolphins to the “Delta” model, which adds digital computer displays, embedded GPS and a new flight navigation system.

The Delta model is slated for servicewide completion by the end of fiscal 2015. The final H-65 upgrade, the Echo model, should be done about four years later, said Cmdr. Joseph Uzmann, project manager of the H-65 acquisition program.

The Delta has been well received by MH-65D crews at Air Station Atlantic City because of its enhanced stability over low water, said Cmdr. Michael MacMillan, the air station’s aviation engineering officer for the H-65. A ring laser gyroscope and GPS provide more accurate data to the flight control stabilization system more quickly, MacMillan said.

“In the earlier model, some of those approaches would become unstable and force the pilots to come on the controls and do some control manipulations, which is not very comfortable when you’re 50 feet over the water in a thunderstorm trying to affect a rescue,” he said.

The Delta model also reduces the helo’s weight by about 60 pounds, which can equal six extra minutes of flight time — or the weight of a small rescue victim.

“That doesn’t sound like an awful lot, but that can make the difference,” Uzmann said.

Eighteen Dolphins have already received the updates during scheduled maintenance periods, which happen every four years for the H-65 — the 10 H-65s at Air Station Atlantic City, as well as eight at installations in Oregon, Alabama and Alaska.

The Delta upgrade costs $101 million and represents the fourth step in the Coast Guard’s plan to update its 30-year-old Dolphin fleet.

The cost to date for all the Dolphin upgrades is about $620 million. How much the upgrade to the Echo model will cost is still unknown.

Previous upgrades included a complete engine replacement and the addition of 7.62mm general-purpose machine guns and .50-caliber precision rifles.

The Dolphin’s upgrade from the Delta to the Echo model will include replacing the automatic flight control system.

The Echo upgrade will also include digital “glass” cockpit instruments, as well as installing a system that will allow for recovering, securing and moving the aircraft aboard the service’s national security cutters.

With the Echo upgrades, crews will have a system that automatically uploads the portions of the structure crews are flying over, so crews can conduct GPS-based navigation and approaches, MacMillan said. The Echo model will also add a mission screen so crews can use sensor packages to assess threats and plan maneuvers more quickly, he said.

“You take your success rate from 50 percent to 75 or 80 percent,” MacMillan said. “And that’s what the pilots want, is to be able to get out there and do what they’ve been sent out there to do.”