Seawolf, the United States Navy's Top Gun for MH-60 Seahawk helicopters

@DefAviation ES 5·18·2024 · 23:15 0

The United States Navy's MH-60R and MH-60S Seahawk helicopters are known for their navy gray liveries.

The serious risks that United States Navy helicopter aviators face
These are the authentic Top Gun: the elite of the US Navy fighter aviators

There are some exceptions to this decoration, such as helicopters dedicated to rescue work and also those assigned to the Navy's Rotary Wing Weapons School (RWWS), better known as "Seawolf". This unit is the "Top Gun" of naval helicopter pilots. It is based at NAS Fallon, Nevada, the same naval air station where the current Top Gun is located.

Seawolf has its origins in the Vietnam War. On April 1, 1967, the US Navy formed the Helicopter Attack Squadron (Light) 3 "Seawolves" (HAL-3), a unit made up of helicopters UH-1E Huey dedicated to special operations missions in support of Navy riverboat forces in the Mekong River Delta. The HAL-3 Seawolves was disbanded on March 16, 1972, after carrying out a surprising number of 120,000 combat sorties in South Vietnam and Cambodia, with 44 airmen killed in action and 200 wounded, becoming the most decorated naval aviation unit in US history.

It soon became evident that the US Navy still needed units of this type. On July 1, 1976, Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 84 (HSC-84) "Red Wolves" was formed, as heir to the HAL-3 and sharing the same insignia: a wolf with a trident and a shield, but in this case the wolf became red instead of blue. This unit was operational until March 19, 2016, and was based at NAS Norfolk, Virginia. Today the legacy of the Seawolves is preserved by the RWWS, which functions as section N8 of the Naval Aviation Warfare Development Center (NAWDC). Top Gun is the N7.

The US Navy notes the following about Seawolf:

Navy’s Rotary Wing Weapons School is composed of a staff of 25 pilots and aircrewmen who instruct the Seahawk Weapons and Tactics Instructor program; provide tactics instructors to fleet squadrons; maintain and develop the Navy's helicopter tactics doctrine via the SEAWOLF Manual; instruct the Navy's Mountain Flying School; provide high-altitude, mountainous flight experience for sea-going squadrons; and provide academic, ground, flight, and opposing-forces instruction for visiting aircrew during Air Wing Fallon detachments.

A few days ago, the NAWDC published some videos of the helicopters used by the Seawolf as aggressor aircraft, that is, those that play the role of opposing forces during the training of naval helicopter aviators. Seawolf has several MH-60S Seahawk helicopters for this mission, but the most striking thing about the aircraft that has been seen recently is that two of the MH-60S are camouflaged as if they were helicopters Russians, following the tradition of the US Navy aggressor units. Here you can see a compilation of the published videos:

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Main image: Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Center (NAWDC).