H-60 HA/DR capability question

[BigIron]

All,

I'm doing some research about USN helo core capabilties wrt HA/DR (Humanitarian Assistance / Disaster Relief). I know H-53E stuff.

A. What are the MH-60S MH-60R, HH-60, SH-60F, and SH-60B capabilities as far as:
1. internal cargo capacity?
2. external cargo capabilities?
3. medical litter capabilities?
4. Max pax configuration?

B. Does the 60-B/F/R ASW stuff come out as a mission removable kit to make room for stuff, or do you have to work around that equipment.

C. Have any of you guys found yourselves in a HA/DR type mission (Katrina, Pakistan, Haiti, Tomodachi) doing things "outside the box" for your T/M/S?

Helo Bubs, I appreciate any responses.

 

[helolumpy]

I can pretty much only speak for the FOXTROT and HOTEL:
Note: Both airframes only have a cabin door on the starboard side. Both aircraft have hydraulic winches (600 lb limit).

FOXTROT
Most of the ASW gear is removeable to become a "Truck". (The ASO gear (port side) is pretty much never removed from the aircraft) There is an avionics rack on the Starboard side that is not removeable. I have pretty much never seen the sonobouy carousel (right behind right seat pilot) out of the aircraft unless it was broken. Same with the sonobouy tubes.

External cargo: The hook is rated for 6K but you'll never get that much. A Truck FOXTROT with crew and WITHOUT fuel weighs in close to 17K. Max Gross is 21884, so you really only have about 5K to play with for fuel and cargo. If your looking for a good planning number, figure on 2.5K max lift for a FOXTROT. That will give them about 1.5K in fuel, which depending on flight profile may give you about an hour before you reach NATOPS min fuel.

Internal cargo: I have never seen a cubic foot number for the aircraft. NATOPS only lists 300 lb/sq foot for the cabin floor. There is an internal fuel tank in the FOXTROT that is not removeable (without a saw). You 'can' fit one litter in, but you have to kind of wedge it in across the cabin (the handles and maybe some feet may be sticking out the door a bit in flight). During the NEO at FALLON we loaded 12 SEALS in addition to 2 crewmen on the back of a TRUCK. (We stacked them like cordwood). It took a little ground cushion and realtive wind but the aircraft go out of the LZ. It was uncortbable as hell, but more cozy than getting 'shot' at by the bad guys.
For seating we can put three seats across the back; two crew seats (crashworthy); one "tunnel troop seat". (6 seat max) There is a debate within the community as to whether you can fly without a dedicated seat for the crewman/men so how many you can sit may be 6 or 6+ depending on your squadron. For HA/DR figure you'll need seats for everyone, so I would say you can plan on fit 4-5 per lift. (depends on opinion of crew needing seats) The crewmen seats (crashworthy) sit on rails that I've only seen removed once. It's like having two little sets of train tracks running through the cabin. It's easy to work around, but makes stacking gear a bit more tricky.

The portside window for the cabin can not be opened or closed in flight but it only take 10 seconds to remove it on deck. If you're landing at an unprepared LZ, then you should plan on pulling that windown prior to take-off. Other than weather, there is no limiting factors for flying with the window out.

HOTEL:
You can put in 9 seats in the HOTEL, none are the crashworthy crew seats. Usual tactical configuration would probably be three across the back and two up front (rear facing).

External: About the same issue as the FOXTROT except the airframe is heavier. You can figure on the same lift capacities.

Internal: The HOTEL does not have the internal fuel tank or the ASW gear stations so you should be able to fit two litters in the cabin. (You'll have to go with the 5 seat config to do it) For pax, you can figure on 8-9 (does crew need seats?) per lift. Same note on internal cabin loading, but if you have a motivated crewmen, they can pack the cabin pretty tightly back there. I would say a HOTEL can fit about twice as much stuff in it that a FOXTROT can carry.

The portside windows (plural) can be open and closed in flight.

If you need more info, please let me know

 

[Pags]

60S:
Max internal weight: 5500lbs
Max palletized cargo weight: 4733
Pax: varies depending on internal aux tank config. Without an aux tank, 11pax*. with a single aux tank, 7 pax. *the pax numbers assume 2 aircrew onboard and liferaft req'd.
Fuel: w/out aux: ~2+00. w/ 1aux: 3+00, w/ 2 aux: 4+00 (2 aux tanks pretty much kills your cabin space).
Ext cargo: 8000lbs on the cargo hook, but usually you're functionally limited to ~4k unless you've burned off a lot of gas.

No HA/DR experience, just a crap load of PMC.
Litters: 4. I think there's also a litter management system that the NAAD a/c are fitted with, not sure what their numbers are.

 

[MasterBates]

60B

Sono rack is not a "kit" but it can come out to open up the cabin some. Cabin is kind of tight otherwise.

6000' on the hook theoretically but you'll gross out before that unless you are about out of gas. I want to say with a full bag, you had 2-3k gross available internal and about 1100 more external depending on specific aircraft. Block 1 Core B is a good ton heavier than the Block 0/Block .75 birds.

Cabin had a #/sqft restriction, but again, you'll gross out with dense stuff, and run out of room with people.

I forget the exact number, but including crew, I had well over 10 Adults, including some bigguns in the cabin during Katrina with only the sono launcher gone. There were people jammed in the "tunnel" between the ASW gear, Radar boxes and computers stuff.

Fuel without AUX =~ 4k, give you about 3 hours hovering/hard running and closer to 4.5 if you baby it. I think I've logged around a 5.0 without gas, but that was max conserve from takeoff to land, and landed with "600".

Never seen real live AUX tanks in use, but my info is a tad dated, since I have not sat in, flown, or broke open a 60B NATOPS since 2006.

 

[illinijoe05]

The wing has a ppt with all the info you need for F/H/S. I made the 53 slides for it back in sept. Wing Opso should have it. Ill send you what I have next time Im at work.

 

[Gatordev]

MB hit most of it w/ the BRAVO, but we went a little farther in Haiti.

We took out all the seats, seat rails and sonobuoy launcher. You generally are still going to have the RAST probe in there, but taking out the seat rails helps a lot. The mission systems stay in, though a lot of it could come out if it was end of the world stuff going on. I had 11 people in the back and they were tight, but fit. We can't really take more than 2 litters because of the mission equipment. Depending on gas, we would take about 2,000# (or more as we burned down) internal (food/water).

With seats in, the room goes down, which also happens. In Guatemala, we had 4 of the 5 seats (no launcher) and tried to pack as much food as we could, but space was more of an issue than weight.

In Haiti I VERTREPed loads that were far heavier than I should have been doing, but with good motors, she'll do it. With full tank of gas, we were struggling with what I'm guessing were about 3K loads that the Sierra wasn't having issues with. I don't really know how heavy they were, I just know that the Gator we were 'REPing to must have had the most soda, flour and rice in the Caribbean.

One last thing to know is that with HA/DR comes ISR. Someone up the food chain wanted us to have FLIR on both birds in Haiti before we left. That takes up a little more room in the cabin, but it's not a huge deal.

 

[Pags]

60S:
Max internal weight: 5500lbs
Max palletized cargo weight: 4733
Pax: varies depending on internal aux tank config. Without an aux tank, 11pax*. with a single aux tank, 7 pax. *the pax numbers assume 2 aircrew onboard and liferaft req'd.
Fuel: w/out aux: ~2+00. w/ 1aux: 3+00, w/ 2 aux: 4+00 (2 aux tanks pretty much kills your cabin space).
Ext cargo: 8000lbs on the cargo hook, but usually you're functionally limited to ~4k unless you've burned off a lot of gas.

No HA/DR experience, just a crap load of PMC.
Litters: 4. I think there's also a litter management system that the NAAD a/c are fitted with, not sure what their numbers are.

Keep in mind that my pax numbers reflect actual seats. If you want to say "fuck it, operational necessity for all my friends, throw as many people in as you can", then those numbers are going to up. I've never tried to cube out a Sierra with people, but you could get a lot more than 11 in there, but you'd have to start watching max gross weight (22,500lbs).

 

[squorch2]

Did HA/DR with Sierras aboard Comfort as part of Continuing Promise back in 2009. I'd say the biggest limitations are the gas and the PPE necessary for planned transportation of pax.

The PPE deal is such that you need n+2 sets of 11 cranials and flotation to maximize your throughput while running PMC - one set on the helo(s) and two sets on the ground at the staging area and back at the ship so that you don't waste time fitting people with gear while you're spinning on deck. It was much more difficult than we thought to get 3 extra 10/10 kits.

Gas becomes an issue while operating from single spot decks, since you don't want to clobber your deck and waste time you could be ferrying PMC just to take gas. In-country gas is obviously a possibility, but tends to be unreliable. "Half gas/half milk in the sample bottle" unreliable.

Like Pags said, you can just say "operational necessity" and none of that matters, but we were doing planned ops. I thought that a 53 and a 60 would do better than two 60s, but was just spitballing - no real numbers to back me up.

 

[Gatordev]

Did HA/DR with Sierras aboard Comfort as part of Continuing Promise back in 2009. I'd say the biggest limitations are the gas and the PPE necessary for planned transportation of pax.

The PPE deal is such that you need n+2 sets of 11 cranials and flotation to maximize your throughput while running PMC - one set on the helo(s) and two sets on the ground at the staging area and back at the ship so that you don't waste time fitting people with gear while you're spinning on deck. It was much more difficult than we thought to get 3 extra 10/10 kits.

All of that was pretty much thrown to the wind in Haiti. Seats were not required for anyone other than the pilots and there were varying interpretations on what PPE was "required" for pax. I think technically you were supposed to have flotation and cranials for everyone, and occassionally you'd hear someone turn down pax or a mission because of limited PPE, but for the most part, people in the local area (ie, not the -53's having to ferry people from Cuba) just made it happen. You'd also realize how useless PPE really was when the Army, Navy and AF were all loading your turning helo with nothing more than ear plugs, day in and day out, or how useless PPE was for burn victims or people with broken limbs/in stretchers.

 

[squorch2]

I hear you - my experience is more of a planned HA/DR with rules and such.

 

[insanebikerboy]

Here was our setup for Haiti. Helolumpy hit most of what we did but I'll caveat it with our experience. Plus, I've heard you can fit an actual wood pallet in the back of a F/H but I've never taken the time to measure or actually try it.

In the Fox, we pulled out everything, ASO rack, sonobuoy rack, sonor, seats, and seat rails. We had one seat at the door and one at the left window for the crewmen, otherwise we were completely empty. It allowed us to carry a lot more and the seat rails being gone made putting stretchers in there easier. The book says you can only fit one stretcher in a Fox but with some creative placement we got two on one lift.

As for external loads, like has been mentioned you have 6k on the hook, the most I've ever lifted personally has been about 3800 externally. To ift that much repeatedly you'll have about 2.5 max on fuel.

I can't think of anything that would really qualify as outside of the box right now, although during this tour I've done so much random shit it's all blurry now. That, and I'm going numb from being on duty on the boat, yaay!

 

[squorch2]

Also, for the Sierra the hook is rated to 8k, but the Mk 105 is rated to 6k. Something that sometimes gets lots in the capabilities piece.

 

[Pags]

the Mk 105 is rated to 6k.

Mk105 = standard vertrep pendant.

 

[Gatordev]

I hear you - my experience is more of a planned HA/DR with rules and such.

Yeah, I didn't mean to negate your point, which is very valid. We just got very spoiled in Haiti with the blank check that was written. And it was back to all the rules and limitations you mention when I flew into Guatemala.

 

[Jim123]

Yeah, I didn't mean to negate your point, which is very valid. We just got very spoiled in Haiti with the blank check that was written. And it was back to all the rules and limitations you mention when I flew into Guatemala.

I think we're talking about a few different deployments to Haiti- the main differences being time available for planning (not just tactical mission planning but higher stuff that can take months- LZ surveys, meeting with the local authorities/liaisons/etc, figuring out where you can get fuel) and whether or not the country suffered a natural disaster immediately prior to the deployment.

A few terms here that only affect the guy in the cockpit a little but the subtle differences matter a lot at higher levels:
Humanitarian Civic Assistance (HCA)- usually when there hasn't been a disaster... some of the Comfort stuff Squorch2 is talking about that happened before the earthquake. The point of this is usually to generate goodwill but another important benefit is everybody from top to bottom gets a lot of experience out of it.
Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief (HA/DR)- usually right after a disaster... after Hurricane Ike, Kearsarge, already deployed doing HCA a lot like the Comfort and Mercy deployments, was diverted to Haiti for HA/DR.
Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA)- also usually right after a disaster, but normally the National Guard gets the call before the federales get involved. Some of the major gulf coast hurricanes (Katrina, Ike) are recent examples.

HA/DR and DSCA players usually have a standing plan and those plans usually get reviewed in the springtime... kinda like what BigIron is up to