Coast Guard to SLEP, Expand MH-60T Helicopter Fleet as Sikorsky Delivers First New Airframe

The Navy Leagues on line magazine, Seapower, reports,

“The U.S. Coast Guard has confirmed plans to expand is MH-60T Jayhawk helicopter fleet and make it the standard service-wide helicopter. The service life-extension of the current MH-60T fleet is being highlighted as Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, delivers the first of 45 replacement MH-60T airframes to the Coast Guard.”

There is a lot of information here.

• The Coast Guard currently has 48 MH-60T.
• Generally, six are being overhauled.
• 45 of these will receive new hulls.
• 12 new hulls will be delivered annually.
• Electric tail folding will be added to MH-60s beginning in 2024.

That suggests the SLEP program for the existing Fleet will go through FY 2027, but there is also an intent to replace all H-65s with H-60s. Ultimately the Service expects to have 127 H-60s. That is 79 additional H-60s. Growth will involve both new construction and additional Navy conversions. Sounds like we may still be as much as 13 years from full conversion to a full H-60 fleet, about 2036, but perhaps earlier.

H-65s will continue to operate from cutters for some time.

So, what about the H-65s and the smaller cutters that may not be able to operate the H-60? The nine “B class” 270s should be able to operate H-60s, but the 210s and four “A Class” 270s cannot. The last of those will probably be decommissioned about 2032, certainly no later than 2035.

Aviation Logistics Center (ALC), CGAS Elizabeth City should be wrapping up the MH-65E SLEP program about now, having begun full rate production in November 2019 at a rate of 22 aircraft a year. The SLEP reportedly added 10,000 hours to the life of each aircraft, so the H-65s will probably outlast the cutters that can only operate the smaller helicopter.