JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md.—Like a new car from the dealership, the HH-60W helicopter that touched down here Nov. 2 came with paperwork, a set of keys, and that fresh-from-the-factory smell.
It’s the first time helicopter pilots at Andrews have smelled that smell in 55 years.
The newly activated 5th Helicopter Squadron accepted its first “Whiskey” in a brief but pomp-filled ceremony attended by the Undersecretary of Air Force Matthew Lohmeier and Vice Chief of Staff Gen. John D. Lamontagne. The 5th and its sister unit, the 1st Helicopter Squadron, will eventually have 26 HH-60Ws to replace the current fleet of UH-1N Hueys that have flown executive airlift and contingency response missions over the nation’s capital since 1971.
The Huey achieved iconic status during the Vietnam War, but Air Force officials say it’s long past time to replace the ones at Andrews with a more capable aircraft. The HH-60W’s primary mission is combat search and rescue, and it can fly 25 percent faster and 100 percent farther than the UH-1N while lifting 200 percent more. It also has a bigger cabin, modern avionics, and a glass cockpit.
The HH-60Ws at Andrews will eventually be slightly modified for the D.C. mission. But the first one to touch down Nov. 2 came directly from manufacturer Sikorsky’s factory in Connecticut, untouched. Chief Master Sgt. Benjamin Griffin, the 316th Operations Group’s command chief, handed off the DD250 acceptance form to Lt. Col. Zachary Tindall, the 316th’s maintenance operations flight commander. Col. Kevin Geoffroy, commander of the 316th, handed off the keys to Lt. Col. Jonathan Bonilla, commander of the 5th Helicopter Squadron.
The keys came with a clickable seagull keychain—a nod to the seagull on the 5th Helicopter Squadron’s emblem, drawn from its lineage as the 5th Emergency Rescue Squadron.
After the ceremony, Airmen and visitors swarmed the new Whiskey, checking out its refueling probe and its gun mounts (to be removed). Lamontagne clambered into the cockpit at one point.
It’s been a long and winding journey to get a new helicopter to Andrews. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, the Common Vertical Lift Support Platform program was supposed to produce a helicopter to replace the UH-1N. After that program was canceled, the Air Force pivoted around 2018 to developing the MH-139 Grey Wolf, a modified commercial helicopter, for both ICBM security forces and the executive airlift/contingency response mission. Budgetary and programmatic developments led the service to abandon those plans last July and pivot once more to the HH-60W.
“Talk to a bunch of different individuals in the community, and you’ll realize that this has been something that has been thought about for quite a bit of time,” Bonilla said. “And the fact that it’s here is just making a lot of people smile.”
Col. Karl W. Seekamp, commander of the 316th Wing, spoke during the ceremony of just how necessary for the UH-1N to make way for the HH-60W.
“For a moment, I’d ask you to visualize the Andrews flight line 55 years ago, when this unit was operating HH-3 Jolly Greens and our current fleet of UH-1Ns,” Seekamp told the audience. “At that time, you would have seen massive piston-driven C-124s on the ramp. On the Navy ramp would have been Skyraiders and Neptunes. The 113th Wing would have recently upgraded from its Super Sabers to F-105 Thunderchiefs. And of course, on the west ramp of the 89th Airlift Wing, you would see President Nixon’s special airlift mission Boeing 707, the first Air Force One to wear the blue and white paint scheme. These aircraft were once the best in the world, unrivaled technology—but that was a long time ago.”
It’ll be a while still before the Huey is completely gone. Because the contingency response mission is 24/7, the 316th Wing can’t just retire its UH-1Ns and then make the preparations to transition to the HH-60W, like most units do when they’re getting a new aircraft. Instead, the 1st Helicopter Squadron will continue to handle the day-to-day mission with the UH-1N while the 5th Helicopter Squadron gets up to speed on the HH-60W.
Already, the 5th has spent two months prepping for the Whiskey, Bonilla said, describing “a lot of tasks that may seem trivial initially, but all of those tasks are extremely important so that we can actually fly the helicopter: … making sure that all the systems are here, making sure that all the equipment is here, looking at the hangar space, looking at the mission planning, ensuring that all the aircrew is ready to go, has been vetted, has been checked, and they have the proper experience.”
In January, the first group of UH-1N aviators will start training to transition to the HH-60W. Maintainers will also start training on the aircraft. For now, the need to start that training is greater than the need to make modifications, Bonilla said.
One thing that won’t be modified, he noted, is the paint job. While the Huey sports a distinctive dark blue, gold, and white livery, the Whiskey will remain gunship grey so that it remains available for the combat rescue mission.