Aug. 20, 2021 —
The U.S. Coast Guard deployed MH-60 crews from Air Station Clearwater, Florida, to transport medical supplies and personnel to provide humanitarian assistance in Haiti following the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Aug. 14, 2021. The service is purchasing new hulls for the medium range recovery helicopters as part of an effort to gain additional service hours from its original MH-60T fleet. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Lt. David Steele.
The Coast Guard ordered one additional new MH-60T hull from Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation of Stratford, Connecticut, Aug. 17 to support the service’s ongoing service life extension of its original fleet of 45 MH-60Ts.
A July 6 delivery order for five hulls was modified to include the additional helicopter hull, valued at just over $6.8 million. The Coast Guard has ordered a total of 31 new hulls on the existing indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract. The initial order of 25 hulls, worth nearly $207 million, was placed in January 2021. Delivery of the first new hull is anticipated in early 2023, with subsequent hulls scheduled for delivery at a pace of approximately one per month starting in late 2023.
The Coast Guard’s MH-60 helicopters, which have been in service since 1990, are reaching the end of their service life. This order provides new MH-60T hulls with 20,000 hours of service life to support the Coast Guard’s 11 statutory missions, including drug interdiction, environmental protection and search and rescue.
Hull replacement is just one component of the MH-60T sustainment effort. In addition, some critical dynamic components such as main rotor blades and electrical wire harnesses will also be replaced. Aircraft production – the assembly and installation of dynamic components on the hulls – will be completed at the Coast Guard Aviation Logistics Center in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.
For more information: MH-60T Sustainment Program page