Coast Guard Helicopters: Always Ready Rotary Wings
When Hurricane Michael smashed the Florida Gulf Coast last October, Coast Guard helicopters pre-positioned from air stations as far away…
Frank Colucci
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NAVAIR Rotary-Wing Programs
The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) has made good on plans to modernize rotary-wing aviation across the Navy and…
Integrating the C-27J Spartan
The windfall that gave the U.S. Coast Guard 14 C-27J Spartan maritime patrol aircraft has enabled a complicated…
Coast Guard Aviation Modernizes and Networks Its Aircraft Fleets
In May 2013, a P-3 Orion patrol aircraft of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) cued the CGC Bertholf to…
Wide Area Aerial Surveillance Technologies Evolve for Homeland Security and Other Applications
The Wide Area Aerial Surveillance (WAAS) systems that found improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan now lend themselves…
Marine Corps Aviation: Modernizing Before the Storm
Marine Corps aviation is getting new strike fighters, medium-lift tilt-rotors, attack and utility helicopters, and turboprop tanker-transports in advance of…
Multi-sensor Sentry
As of August 2011, the U.S. Coast Guard had 12 HC-144A Ocean Sentry medium-range surveillance aircraft and a dozen associated…
Responsive, Relevant, Rotary-wing
Eighty years ago, the U.S. Navy bought three XOP-1 autogyros for testing. After three historic landings on the carrier Langley…
Straight Up, Hands Off
Though vertical takeoff unmanned aircraft systems (VTUASs) cannot match the endurance of fixed-wing unmanned aircraft systems (UASs), unmanned rotorcraft already…
Unmanned, Over Water, On Guard
The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) has yet to buy its first unmanned aircraft system (UAS), but a working partnership with…