U.S. Naval Aviation has utilized the helicopter as a platform to perform a multitude of duties since its introduction in the 1940s. The versatility of the rotary aircraft has changed the way the Navy has carried out many of its core missions, including search and rescue, anti-submarine warfare, replenishment at sea, mine detection, anti surface warfare duties and others.

The diversity of the missions to be performed requires aircraft and pilots that can be highly adaptive and multi-mission set when taking off. The Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) has also taken the Navy to much more arid regions than typically seen before. The 60 series of Sikorsky have demonstrated the type of flexibility and modularity needed by the military, especially the U.S. Navy. The five different types of variants found on Naval ships prove that there is a need for a flexible fleet of sea and air worthy aircraft.

Commodore Steve Schreiber is a Naval Aviator who has spent considerable time flying different aircraft. He’s been a test pilot, accumulating over 5,800 hours in 58 different aircraft both in the United States and for the United Kingdom. In this podcast you’ll learn about advances in U.S. Naval Helicopter Aviation and what’s to come for future aircraft platforms including the MH-53.