DALLAS, March 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Sikorsky, a
Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) company, today paid tribute to the U.S.
Coast Guard's century of aviation (1916-2016) during which the
service successfully adapted the helicopter as a primary
life-saving tool for untold thousands of human beings in need of
rescue. Sikorsky President Dan
Schultz gave the tribute during HAI Heli-EXPO 2017, the
world's largest trade show and exposition dedicated to the
international helicopter community.
"The year 2017 begins a second century of aviation for the U.S.
Coast Guard in which the uninterrupted beat of rotary wing aircraft
will continue to carry some of the most courageous and best trained
men and women on the planet into hazardous situations for the
purpose of saving human lives," said Dan
Schultz. "Their selfless courage in Coast Guard helicopters
and aboard other vessels at their command exemplifies humanity's
best values at work."
U.S. Coast Guard aviators Rear Adm. David Callahan, commander of the Eighth Coast
Guard District, and Capt. Joe
Kimball, chief of the Office of Aviation Forces, attended
the ceremony.
The U.S. Coast Guard began accurate record keeping of its
helicopter search and rescue (SAR) cases starting in 1993. Since
that time, the service has recorded more than 131,000 SAR missions in helicopters, including
36,942 in the Sikorsky H-60 Jayhawk model, which became operational
in 1991.
"The Coast Guard is proud to be a pioneer and advocate during
early rotary-wing aviation, especially for search and rescue," said
Callahan. "Coast Guard aviators continue to rely on helicopters to
perform missions under hazardous conditions to save lives and
property. Countless lives have been saved due to the unique
abilities of helicopters, and they will continue to be a valuable
asset for the Coast Guard."
Sergei Sikorsky, eldest son of company founder Igor Sikorsky,
also attended the ceremony. In late 1943, he enlisted as an
aviation machinist mate second class assigned to the Coast Guard's
first helicopter test squadron at Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, New York.
Dangling from a primitive rescue hoist beneath a Sikorsky R4
(HNS-1) helicopter whose design his father, Igor, had flown for the
first time in 1939, Sergei placed his absolute trust in his
commanding officers, who themselves had received their pilot
licenses just months earlier.
"There is no doubt in my mind that the Coast Guard pioneered the
use of the helicopter as a rescue vehicle," said Sergei. "It was
under the leadership of two brilliant men, Commander Frank A. Erickson and Lieutenant 'Stew' Graham,
that the rescue hoist and the Erickson basket were developed in
1944-1946, in some cases with me as the test rescuee. The Coast
Guard has proven time and time again Igor Sikorsky's prediction
that 'the helicopter will prove to be a unique instrument for the
saving of human lives.'"
On January 3, 1944, Cmdr. Erickson
performed the world's first life-saving mission in a helicopter —
shortly after the destroyer USS Turner blew up while
operating off the coast of New
Jersey. Flying from New York
City during a severe winter storm, he successfully delivered
cases of critically needed blood plasma to a shore-based field
hospital at Sandy Hook near the
accident site.
Only with the fielding of the vastly more powerful Sikorsky S-51
helicopter, and later the S-55 in the late 1940s and early 1950s,
said Sergei, did the true value of the helicopter become apparent
as a rescue vehicle.
About Lockheed Martin
Headquartered in Bethesda,
Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace
company that employs approximately 97,000 people worldwide and is
principally engaged in the research, design, development,
manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology
systems, products and services.
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SOURCE Sikorsky