{"id":64960,"date":"2026-05-12T21:46:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T19:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=64960"},"modified":"2026-05-18T23:13:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T21:13:34","slug":"united-states-navy-mh-60r-helicopters-on-the-spanish-assault-ship-castilla-l-52","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2026\/05\/12\/united-states-navy-mh-60r-helicopters-on-the-spanish-assault-ship-castilla-l-52\/","title":{"rendered":"United States Navy MH-60R helicopters on the Spanish assault ship 'Castilla' L-52"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Monday, the United States Navy released images of a new bilateral exercise with the Spanish Navy.<\/p>\n

A deployment of US MH-60R helicopters on the Spanish ship 'Juan Carlos I'<\/a><\/rel>
\nMH-60R Seahawk: this is the new multi-mission helicopter that the Spanish Navy will receive<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n

These images, disseminated through the multimedia portal DVIDShub.net<\/a> of the United States Armed Forces, were taken on April 27 and show U.S. Navy MH-60R helicopters aboard the amphibious assault ship \"Castilla\" L-52<\/strong>, of the \"Galicia\" class.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The aircraft seen in these images belong to Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 79 \"Griffins,\"<\/strong> a unit created on June 2, 2016, initially based at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, California, flying from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72). It is assigned to the Sixth Fleet and equipped exclusively with MH-60R multi-purpose helicopters. Its radio call sign is \"Sentinel.\"<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

This unit is the successor to Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron (HS) 9 \"Sea Griffins\"<\/a>, a unit created in 1956, disbanded in 1993, and equipped with SH-3H Sea King helicopters. The \"Sea Griffins\" became world-famous for their appearance in the film \"The Final Countdown\" (1980)<\/strong>, an excellent movie in which the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) traveled back in time to 1941, in the moments leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The HSM-79, equipped with ten MH-60R helicopters, has been based in Rota, Spain since July 2022<\/strong>, where there had been no U.S. Navy helicopter unit since 2005. Rota is a naval base jointly operated by the Spanish and U.S. naval forces. The HSM-79 is currently the only U.S. Navy Forward Deployed Naval Forces - Europe (FDNF-E) squadron based on the continent.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The HSM-79's MH-60R multipurpose helicopters are assigned anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and anti-surface warfare (SUW) missions<\/strong>, usually operating from the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers that are part of the United States missile defense shield in Rota.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

A few weeks ago we saw the MH-60Rs of HSM-79 operating from the aircraft carrier \"Juan Carlos I\" L-61 of the Spanish Navy<\/a>, during a bilateral exercise carried out on March 18. As I mentioned then, the Spanish Navy expects to receive its first MH-60R Seahawk helicopters in October of this year, from<\/strong> a batch of eight units whose purchase was announced three years ago<\/a>. These helicopters will be assigned to the 10th Squadron of the Naval Air Arm (FLOAN), based in Rota, and will replace the aging SH-60B Seahawk helicopters, the first of which arrived in Spain on December 22, 1988.<\/p>\n

---<\/p>\n

Photos: U.S. Navy.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Monday, the United States Navy released images of a new bilateral exercise with the Spanish Navy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11545,19534],"tags":[319,11462,10669,12825,17543,19930,23189,26655,27058,27059],"class_list":["post-64960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navy","category-defense-portada-eng","tag-us-navy","tag-spain","tag-spanish-navy","tag-naval-station-rota","tag-amphibious-assault-ship-castilla-l-52","tag-sikorsky-mh-60-seahawk","tag-sixth-fleet","tag-helicopter-maritime-strike-squadron-hsm-79-griffins","tag-helicopter-anti-submarine-squadron-hs-9-sea-griffins","tag-forward-deployed-naval-forces-europe-fdnf-e"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-14 23:44:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}