In 1945, the Coast Guard had nine air stations and 165 aircraft. The Navy returned 11 more air stations after war’s end. Now, Americans wanted to enjoy themselves, and an explosion of recreational boats created a booming clientele of people in need of being rescued. The helicopter was ideally suited to this mission. Able to react swiftly, it could lift entire pleasure boat crews from imminent disaster or, in less trying circumstances, deliver de-watering pumps and fuel. But as Coast Guard historian Robert L. Scheina, Ph.D., puts it, in its early years, the helicopter had a major handicap: The pilot needed three hands to fly it!

The Coast Guard’s history with the C-130 Hercules dates to 1958, when it first ordered the R8V-1G, later designated HC-130B, for long-range, over-water patrols and for transport and enforcement functions. The Hercules, also flown by Coast Guardsmen with the Air Force in Vietnam, is suitable for a variety of missions – a four-engined, high-wing aircraft that can carry up to 92 passengers, though the usual number is 44, with 14 web seats and two pallets with 15 airline-style seats each. The HC-130H can also carry 51,000 pounds of cargo, rescue, or oil-pollution-control equipment.

Still, there were remarkable achievements. On April 6, 1948, a Coast Guard H03S-lG completed the longest unescorted helicopter ferry flight on record. The trip from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, to Port Angeles, Washington, via San Diego, California, a distance of 3,750 miles, took 10 1/2 days to complete and involved a total flight time of 57.6 hours.

The versatility of the helicopter was demonstrated during a series of floods in the United States in the 1950s. To carry out this rescue work, the helicopter had to hover among trees, telephone poles, television antennas, and the like. In 1955, Coast Guard helicopters rescued more than 300 people as rivers overflowed in Connecticut and Massachusetts. In December of that year, the Coast Guard on-scene commander directed the rescue of thousands in California. In one incident, a single helicopter operated by two crews rescued 138 people during a 12-hour period.

From 1946, Coast Guard aircraft were used on the international ice patrol. The objective of ice patrol flights is to observe ice floating in the vicinity of the Grand Banks, so that shipping in that well-traveled area can be advised of conditions throughout the iceberg season. Ice patrol flight tracks are normally between 1,200 and 1,700 miles. Since 1983, the flights have used HC-130H Hercules aircraft carrying SLAR (side-looking aerial radar) equipment as the primary reconnaissance tool, and a typical mission has meant six to eight hours in the air. At the normal altitude of 8,000 feet, the SLAR can cover a swath extending 35 miles on each side of the aircraft.

 

The 1950s

In the 1950s, the Coast Guard carried out its difficult missions with “hand me down” aircraft that made the service resemble a walking, talking World War II museum. The legendary PBY Catalina was still in inventory, used now to hunt stranded mariners rather than hostile U-boats. The PB4Y-2G Privateer, its designation shortened to P4Y-2G and later to P-4A, offered both long range and heavy load-carrying capacity for offshore rescue missions. The wartime PBM Mariner seaplane/amphibian was joined in the 1950s by its postwar offspring, the P5M-1G Marlin (also operated in a T-tailed, P5M-2G version), which became the next-to-last seaplane in U.S. service. Marlins had huge metal hulls and cavernous interiors, and they possessed the range to reconnoiter thousands of miles of seacoast. Most were retired by 1961.

Not much newer was the HU-16E Albatross. It was originally dubbed the UF-1G and UF-2G in naval parlance and was equivalent to the Air Force SA-16A and SA-16B but shall forever be known to Coast Guard members as “the Goat,” for reasons no one remembers. The Coast Guard eventually operated 88 of these aircraft, with all but five of the original UF-1Gs being upgraded to the more robust UF-2G – HU-16E – configuration. The Albatross was a full-fledged amphibian, capable of launching and recovering at sea or on land. The first was delivered to the Coast Guard by planemaker Grumman in May 1951.

During the 1950-53 Korean conflict, Coast Guard destroyer escorts were stationed in the Pacific as aircraft rescue sites.

The Coast Guard’s history with the C-130 Hercules dates to 1958, when it first ordered the R8V-1G, later designated HC-130B, for long-range, over-water patrols and for transport and enforcement functions. The Hercules, also flown by Coast Guardsmen with the Air Force in Vietnam, is suitable for a variety of missions – a four-engined, high-wing aircraft that can carry up to 92 passengers, though the usual number is 44, with 14 web seats and two pallets with 15 airline-style seats each. The HC-130H can also carry 51,000 pounds of cargo, rescue, or oil-pollution-control equipment.