NAVAL AVIATION HAS A LONG AND RICH HISTORY.
Helicopters began to seriously
contribute to that heritage in June 1943, when Lieutenant Commander Frank A. Erickson, USCG, proposed that rotorcraft be developed for anti- submarine warfare: “not as a killer craft but as the eyes and ears of the convoy escorts.” To this end, he recommended that helicopters be equipped with radar and dunking sonar. The Navy ordered and received its fi rst helicopter a mere few months later in October 1943. It was a Sikorsky YR-4B (Navy designation HNS-1) accepted at Bridgeport, Connecticut, following a 60-minute test fl ight by Lt. Cmdr. Erickson, and then delivered to NAS Patuxent River, Maryland.
Since that time, the mission sets have broadened and the aircraft have become exponentially more complex and capable. Whether transporting
clean water and
relief supplies into an earthquake- ravaged nation, performing medical evacuations to an aircraft carrier, moving supplies between a carrier and support ship, or deploying a torpedo against an enemy submarine, helicopters in America’s Navy are in action around the globe. Regardless of the mission, each deployed aircraft utilizes state-of- the-art computer, sonar, radar, and air-to-ground weapon technology. Today, helicopters and tilt-rotors have become an indispensable component of naval operations, with 55 percent of all naval aviators being rotary-wing pilots.
“AGUSTAWESTLAND BELIEVES THAT IT, ALONG WITH THE RIGHT PARTNERS, CAN HELP THE NAVY COMPLETELY FLATTEN ITS ADVANCED HELICOPTER TRAINING PROGRAM COST CURVE OVER APPROXIMATELY THE NEXT DECADE . . . “
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