Two HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters simultaneously surpassed 10,000 flight hours on a sortie from Kirtland AFB, N.M., last week. “I’m humbled to get the chance to take the very aircraft I used to fly when it had double-digit flight time and fly it past the 10,000-hour mark,” said Rod Reay of M1 Support Services, who is the 58th Special Operations Wing’s chief HH-60 pilot, following the mission. Both Pave Hawk 644, to which Reay was referring, and Pave Hawk 680 joined the 58th SOW with less than 5,000 flight hours in 1994. “It is a true testament to the Air Force’s military, civilian, and contract maintainers that an aircraft produced with an original lifespan of 7,000 flying hours is now surpassing the 10,000-hour mark,” said Reay. The Air Force has been using Pave Hawks since 1982. USAF officials last month announced that the projected fielding date of a Pave Hawk successor may slip by as much as three years to 2018. (Kirtland report by Connie Rankin)
The Pentagon needs a Digital Command and a Digital Warfare Corps, along with other changes, to take advantage of critical new technologies, according to a think tank founded by former Google CEO and Chairman Eric Schmidt.
