ORLANDO, Florida—Sikorsky is already beginning to install HH-60W Jolly Green II simulators at U.S. Air Force bases so personnel can become acclimated to the new equipment before formal training begins in April.
An operational flight test trainer will reside at Moody AFB in Georgia and a weapon system trainer in Kirtland AFB in New Mexico. There are even landing gear and hoist trainers for maintenance personnel, Greg Hames, Combat Rescue Helicopter program director at Sikorsky, told Aerospace DAILY here Feb. 28.
Another facet of the training program is delivering courseware for educating HH-60W trainees, which will be available at the same time as aircraft delivery, Sean Cattanach, senior program manager for rotary training solutions at Sikorsky, said during the same interview. The company can teach up to 16 students in each class.
The new training system is a change for the Air Force’s search-and-rescue community because the current HH-60M only has one full motion simulator and one stationary simulator at Kirtland. Once the new training model is implemented simulators will reside at each HH-60W main operating base.
HH-60M pilots go back to Kirtland on an 18-month schedule for a simulator refresher. “Now they’ll have operational flight trainers at all of the main bases so they’ll be able to do a good portion of their training in the simulator that would ordinarily require blade time,” Elroy Colby, business development analyst principal at Sikorsky, said during the interview.
Currently, Air Force HH-60M maintenance personnel are dependent on Army simulators at Ft. Eustis in Virginia. Maintainers will have to get acquainted with the changes in the HH-60M—including a fuel tank that is nearly double—and the new trainers will allow them to focus on those capabilities, Colby said.
The HH-60W is a substantial upgrade to the HH-60G, with improved communications and increased survivability with radar, laser and missile warning systems, infrared and radar countermeasures armor and two crew-served weapons.
Since entering low-rate initial production in the fall seven HH-60Ws have taken to the air, working toward required assets available in 2020. The Air Force’s program of record is for 113 HH-60Ws and the line will manufacture roughly one aircraft each month.
