Everyone wants a trophy.
Time for a sea story. As a young j.g., I got to my first squadron ready to do God's work. I do the full workups so I go through all of the overland training, do all of the CSAR/CAS/etc that is required. We then deploy and 90% of my time is spent in plane guard. I personally had no problem with the plane guard if that was my sole purpose in life. However, the whole time we were pushed to become extremely competent overland. The lack of overland opportunity while deployed created cynicism. It's the ultimate catch-22 of Naval rotary wing aviation.
Fast forward to today. The Navy and the HSC community have spent a lot of time having the tail wag the dog, including spending truckloads of cash on equipment and training. Yet when they deploy, 85% or more of HSC flight time while deployed is around the boat doing plane guard and ass and trash. That's their job. Not everyone can be a quarterback, someone has to be a lineman, and HSC is the lineman doing the grunt work.
Along comes a scenario such as the CSAR det we are discussing and a lot of the folks in the HSC chain are hoping and praying that it helps prove just how capable HSC is overland. Unfortunately this PR event didn't do much to help further that narrative. Again, I'm not discounting the fact that the guys out there got to do some work. In this case, the devil is in the details.
There is a role for an expeditionary arm of Naval helicopters and it was proven over the past 15 years. However, the Navy just reduced that capacity by half. Time will tell if it is ever restored.
