Sea Kings

I flown the US version for seven years. Very sturdy helo. I would trust the US version with my family. I felt very safe knowing it would float (mostly upside down). Back then, part of the training was to land it in the water and taxi it around.
The last H-3 I flew before moving on to other aircraft had a 148XXX series BUNO. Tmeans it was built in the 50's and was still flying back in 2000. It even had patches in the skin from Viet Cong bullet holes.
The US Navy still has one active duty squadron flying them. The version they fly is a logistics version, flying pax and trash to ships world-wide. The Navy also has a reserve squadron in San Diego that flies them. Their days are numbered though. The (I feel) inadquate H-60 (for the job) is slated to be the common helo in the US Navy. Coincidently, the US H-3 are rebuilt up in Halifax. Every one I speak to says that Halixfax does the best job rebuilding the helos.

I also spent time on a Canadian Frigate in the mid-eighties (HMCS Algonquin) when I was an enlisted maintainer on helos. I would say the Canadian versions are considerably under-powered for what is crammed into them.

Nealenews.com

"Tories surge ahead"

Go there now to view the death mask of the late Payola Martini.

The remains of the Libranos are to be transported out to sea in a Sea King chopper; dumped into Davy Jones's locker; a not-airworthy Sea King chopper is the legacy of Chretien/Martini/Librano$.

Down with the SSea King Martini.

Thank you, h3seaking, for your insight into this often curious debacle with regards to the Sea King helicopter.

As a civilian I am, of course, not familiar with the service history of the Sea King, and therefore, considering its sullied reputation, it has always been dificult for me to understand why it's been kept in service as long as it has.

This helo sounds sturdy and thus worthy of perhaps a better regard than it's been earning over the past decade or so. And that's not the machines' fault really. Sounds more like a human deficiency in ascertaing, prescribing, and maintaining a role for the Sea King in our naval services. And as for a suitable sucessor to the H3, is there really one being made today that can fill its shoes?

By the way, nice to see some one like yourself partaking in this blog. I consider myself fortunate to be in such good company.

My eyes are getting poor in my old age. Trying to read the black-on-grey words in the bottom right corner of the picture, I thought it said "HMCS Inglorious".

Sea King was/is a very good design.

It's just old, and the Canadian machines have been "ridden hard" for a long time. This shows up as truly spectacular maintenance requirements and worsening reliability. (Helicopters are at the best of times, maintenance hogs, requireing hours of maintenance per hour of flight.)

Nevermind that the state of the art in helicopters has moved on in 50+ years since the design was done.

Great picture. Very funny. So is this - Monte Solberg on the Martin-Layton alliance:

http://www.montesolberg.com/2005/05/now-thats-devious.htm

The best stuff is towards the end of that post.

I'd say its quite impressive that our soldiers have been able to keep them flying for such a long time. Considering our birds probably have a lot less resources and support crew to keep em flying compared to the Americans, they are doing a damn fine job.

The problem lies with their political masters, who don't feel the need to support the military in any significant way.

To follow that line even further, the problem can be traced back to every single Canadian who voted Liberal knowing full well after years of broken promises that our military didn't stand a chance of getting the funding it deserved under the Liberal party.

I do recall, however, that the last time the PC party was in power, it fully neglected our military as well, but I have faith in the new Conservative party to do the right thing. Military spending is one of the primary things I consider when I vote, I just wish more Canadians would consider it as well.

Junker:

It may be true in a general sense that the last PC government neglected the military in general. I'm a little too young to remember for sure - my mind was more on girls and cars at the time! They DID sign a contract to replace the Sea Kings, though. Which Jonny Cretin promply cancelled, costing us $500,000,000 for precisely squat. That was my first indication that I had perhaps slid my first ever federal vote the wrong way...

When one of my military friends was at the 60th anniversary of D-Day last summer they were talking about how great it was that they got a spitfire to do a flypast.

I pointed out that the Spitfire was only a few years older than the seakings and they still fly.

40-60 yrs whats the big deal?

ANY ONE WHAT TO BUY A USED SUB?

CHEAP

Schwarze Tulpe:
I would look at the S-92 or the EH-101. The EH-101 is used by Canadian Coast Guard and the Marines have picked it to be the new presidential helo. It has three engines and alot of room. Something the H-60 is lacking for some missions. The S-92 is basically an H-60 cockpit grafted onto a larger fuselage. Appeals to me because it is American made, but the EH-101 is very close.

YOCHANANBNAVROHOM:

Only if it nonsubmirsable, they
are my favourite kind. I've grown
to love them thanks to my government.

The difference between a SeaKing and Spitfire, is I think this:

A very small number of Spitfires are kept flying for small number of hours, in good weather, by application of many hours of painstaking maintenance and loving care.

This is a somewhat different situation than what is theoretically a major active military asset to the frigates, expected to operate in adverse weather carrying daily combat& freight loads and undergoing the stresses of landing on smallish ships.

If the SK was a symbol of something other than severe underfunding and political chicanery there wouldn't be a big problem. A couple of experienced pilots and keen maintenance guy would keep the 2 remaining units flying them on sunny fleet days for 3 hours a month, and in the iterim they'd be kept warm and dry in a nice hanger.

They would then last indefinitely

Don't get me wrong Mike, the Liberals did a far better job gutting the military then Mulroney's PC party did. However, the PC party failed to make the sweeping changes the military badly needed, the same changes they promised.

Some people believe our military is reaching a point of no return. It needs a huge influx of funding, and some major restructoring. As it stands right now, we are hard pressed to but 1000 boots on the ground in a place like Afghanistan. Just 1000 soldiers out of a 60,000 personel force, and we are at our limit? If we keep neglecting them pretty soon we won't be able to deploy outside of Canada at all.