U.S. Navy MH-60S Pilot Talks Multi-Mission Roles During Tour Of The Seahawk

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:16]I'm Lieutenant Commander Sean Skolski base out of San Diego with HSC 21 Blackjacks. We are HSC 21 debt 4 the Yahi. We are paying homage to the USS Camber which is the ship we're deployed on. The Yowi is the Australian Bigfoot.

[00:00:31]So uh we wanted to pay a little bit homage to the uh Australian roots of the vessel that we are currently deployed with. So the MH60 Sierra is a multi-m missission platform, hence the M for multi-m missission. Uh it is uh it operates in in many missions including search and rescue, defense of the force, uh anti- uh or mine counter measures. Uh we do a lot of logistics, moving movement of uh personnel and mail throughout uh throughout the force, both from land and between ship to ship. Uh so we uh we bring a lot of uh a lot of things to the table with this aircraft.

[00:01:03]So this is the uh the MTS or the multisspectral targeting system. Uh it allows us to look in uh in both fleer or infrared and then also day TV. Uh so it is a you know a day camera or a night camera for us. Uh it also provides some targeting for us for our Hellfire which we'll see in just a moment on the side of the aircraft.

[00:01:22]On the side of the aircraft here you see 2x AGM 114s. These are CADMS or captive air training missiles. They are the perfect copy of the real things. Uh, and these are targeted with that uh with that camera system or that multisspectral targeting system that you see on the front of there. And next to me here, you have the M240 chambered in 7.62 millimeter. We bring two of these, one in each gunner's window. These are operated by our crewmen or our AWS's.

[00:01:47]Uh, and this is one of the many things that they do in the back of the aircraft, including being our rescue swimmers when we're operating in the search and rescue role. So, we have uh four screens in the cockpit, two flight displays and two mission displays. uh those provide us the opportunity to interact with all aircraft systems uh and uh including you know with the fleer on the front of the aircraft uh and all flight instrumentation as well allowing us to fly in all weather in the Sierra we are very multi-m missission in order to be qualified uh crew members need to go through a full syllabi a very robust syllabus uh once they execute and complete that syllabus it allows them to operate in all mission sets and brings a uh you know a very rounded capability to the force when we're in search and rescue role We have two crewmen in the back. One of which is operating as the hoist operator and the other one is our rescue swimmer.

[00:02:35]Uh and when we are operating in for example our our mine countermeasure role uh we will have uh one of the people in the back that's operating our winch or operating portion of the uh the mine system and the other one will actually be at the console operating more of the uh more of the mine system. So they are they are trained in many things in the back very diverse uh mission sets and they bring a lot of capability. The aircraft can be reconfigured in a multitude of ways uh depending on our mission set. It's very modular allowing us to install seats, additional fuel tanks. Uh we can remove the seats in order to move palletized cargo or large you know bulky cargo. Uh so the uh the you know the Blackhawk or the MH60 Sierra is a very uh very capable aircraft for that. A console will go in the back for the mine mission. It's called the common console. Uh and that will be in the back towards the front of the cabin uh allowing two people to sit there facing aft and then uh in the back depending on what we're doing for mine uh for mine countermeasures we will have uh we'll have operators back there as well. And here we have uh our integrated self-defense or countermeasures for uh for missiles etc. So this aircraft uh is unique uh they the Navy operates two versions of the MH60. We have the MH60 Sierra and the Romeo. Uh the Sierra has the tail wheel all the way at the back of the aircraft is how you can tell the difference between the two. Uh so you'll see the tail wheel all the way at the back. Similar to an Army Blackhawk, we will with this aircraft land on all the same ships that the Romeos will. Uh we just have a slightly smaller tolerance uh to to the edges of the deck when we uh when we operate on those flight decks. Being a Navy aircraft, one of the things that is somewhat different to this aircraft uh from some of the other army Blackhawks that you'll see or the other countries Blackhawks that you'll see is we do have a fully folding system. So, our rotor system electrically folds allowing all four rotor blades to fold towards the aft of the aircraft. We'll crush those up and then this whole tail, the st the the stabilators will fold up vertically. And we'll actually take this tail and fold it down the side of the aircraft, allowing us to fit it in the hanger bay of the small ships that we operate off of.

[00:04:37]So here you'll see our uh our rescue hoist. This provides us the ability to do search and rescue which is one of our primary missions uh when we're operating around the strike group or you know just operating around other surface assets.

[00:04:48]Uh so with our crewman in the back as discussed earlier we do have a a hoist operator and then we also have a rescue swimmer. So those are going to be the people that are going to jump right out of the aircraft, go down uh rescue the people out of the water and we'll bring them back up into the cabin and take them to a higher level of care. Thanks so much for joining us with our quick tour of the MH60 Sierra.