INTHESPOTLIGHT continued
industry [as they are from us]. [That being said], just by our mission profile, we’re probably exposed to the risk of going inad- vertent IMC more than some others. We train pretty rigorously on that. Like the commercial industry, we have annual proficiency checks where we test things that we can’t do in the aircraft. We get our instrument tests done, and then we practice some instrument flight and navigation off radar and those types of things. And we have procedures in place for when you go inadvertent IMC. Obviously, the situational awareness depends on your action. But you turn around and try to get back and establish VMC, or you have some type of exit strat- egy where you know to climb on a safe bearing, get up to a certain altitude, and pick up an approach or get radar handling to help. Maybe you work with air traffic control or the [mission] controllers to get you back to VMC. For some of our missions, we plan on going in instrument conditions. I think we probably need to practice a
little more often purposefully going into IMC out to a point with ATC coverage, establish a radar scan, and then do a due-regard letdown and descend, and step down until hopefully you can make visual conditions again.
Does it help that you’re dual-crewed so that the pilots can bounce thoughts back and forth between each other and work different parts of the panel? Oh yeah, I think so. The H-60 is designed for dual crew, so we fly them all the time. The MH-65 is designed for single-pilot operations, but we require dual pilots in instrument conditions. And I will tell you, it’s highly beneficial, if not critical, to have that other trained pilot, who’s there to help distribute the workload with radar, radio communica- tions, monitoring conditions, or just back-
24 ROTOR SEPTEMBER 2023
ing you up on your approaches. We do some interesting stuff. We’ll do IMC approaches down to the water into a coupled hover, and bring an aircraft down and break out at a hundred feet, or come into a hover at 50 ft. and then see if we can see the water. That’s pretty intense stuff. And while we have a lot of auto- mated systems that will help with that, it’s always good to have somebody backing you up and maintaining that awareness.
How does the Coast Guard interact with other government or law enforcement agencies? The Coast Guard has 11 statutory mis- sions. We do everything from law enforce- ment to environmental protection to protecting living marine resources. Of course, search-and-rescue is one of those vital missions. And in all those, we work with other federal, state, and local agencies. We operate globally, but for most of our operations, particularly in District 13, we work with all the federal partners, state, local folks, and tribal organizations. I can think of numerous examples where we’ve either worked for or helped an agency, such as finding lost climbers in Olympic National Forest. Law enforce- ment agencies have also asked for our help providing surveillance of nefarious activity. We also work with Canada on a regular
basis, for search-and-rescue, environmen- tal response, and law enforcement. We’ve helped evacuate firefighters from encroaching fire.
The USCG is starting to do much more with simulators. How have you used simulators in training your crews? We’ve been using them since I entered aviation. Their quality and fidelity have only improved over time, to the point where they’re on par with commercial
simulators. We’ve expanded their use to not only our helicopters but our fixed-wing fleet, as well. We can now use simulators for air- borne use-of-force missions to couple the flight mechanic or air gunner position with the cockpit or pilot portion of the simula- tor, so you can have two simulators run- ning at one time and conduct practice runs, intercept maneuvers, fire warning shots, and those types of things.
The commercial industry is experiencing a shortage of pilots and mechanics. Is this affecting the Coast Guard, and what’s the service doing to maintain the level of staffing needed to conduct missions? We’ve had challenges, but the Coast Guard is an exceptional organization that has meaningful, important missions. I’d encourage anyone who wants to do something meaningful, to seek adventure and opportunities, to consider the Coast Guard.
But there’s no way around it. The short- age in commercial aviation is growing. We continue to try to incentivize people to come into the service, and we train well, but retention is a concern.
I think the Coast Guard—and all the armed services—needs to look at its com- pensation systems and make sure we’re continually competitive on the commercial side. Again, I think the value or the impor- tance of the mission helps us with retention.
One of the other things we try to do is train people and—it may sound counter- intuitive—get them their civilian creden- tials so they can transition to the commercial workforce after leaving the Coast Guard. The idea is, if we keep peo- ple through a full 20-year career or even beyond and they’re still young enough to go out into the commercial world, we can actually be a feeder into the commercial aviation industry.
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