PHOTOS: HAI/DAN SWEET
Along the Oregon coast, the weather can change quickly.
During a late-evening training exercise, the marine layer (in the background) begins to develop into the gray fog that often blankets the coast. Opposite page:
Patrolling past the
ocean-side entrance to Sunset Bay State
Park, an MH-65E flies past some of
Oregon’s rocky cliffs and coastline.
FROM MISSION DRIVEN TO SAFETY DRIVEN continued
officers taking leadership roles. Te commanding officer is at the top of the leadership chain, assisted by the executive officer, the second in command. At Sector North Bend, the chief pilot, a commander (O5), also serves as the operations officer. Despite the organization’s structure encompassing boat crews, each of the officers holding a leadership role is an aviator. Most personnel at Sector North Bend have primary roles,
such as pilots or maintenance crew. Tey also hold collateral duties involving flight scheduling, command security, training,
standardization, housing, public affairs, or record keeping. “Because we’re a sector, not an air station, our operations officer is also in charge of all boat-station operations,” says Lt. Tyler Reynolds, a pilot and the sector’s collateral public affairs officer. One of the next most senior pilots then takes the role of air operations officer, managing the air side “to take some of the load off of the actual operations officer.” Being responsible for many roles means training for both
routine and specific scenarios. “From the flight mechanic side, the biggest training that we probably do here is vertical-surface training,” says Gigliotti, who, as a senior petty officer, is not only a flight mechanic but also a watch captain, the maintenance control petty officer, a member of the quality assurance team, and a flight mechanic instructor. “Tere’s no place else in my career we’ve ever done it. It’s a very nuanced evolution to get the swimmer down and to get them over to the survivor.”
Pilot Lt. Tyler
Reynolds reviews mission parameters
as part of a flight risk assessment.
32 ROTOR DECEMBER 2022
SAR Teamwork For SAR work, operating an MH-65E typically involves four crew members: a pilot in command (PIC), a copilot, a flight mechanic/hoist operator, and a rescue swimmer. Pilots begin training in flight school and advance through various levels of proficiency. Coast Guard pilots begin with standard copilot qualifications, then upgrade to SAR pilot and then first pilot, which means they are qualified to fly the aircraft. SAR pilots fly from the right seat—the PIC position in
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