SH-3 Sea King by Hubert Ortinger (Hasegawa 1/48)

Hasegawa's 1/48 scale
SH-3 Sea King

by Hubert Ortinger

Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King

Hasegawa's 1/48 scale SH-3H Sea King is available online from Squadron

Background

The design of the S-61 was Sikorsky´s answer to the requirements of the US Navy, to combine both hunting and killing of submarines in one airframe. Earlier they needed two HSS-1 Seabat Helicopter.

The HSS-2 Prototype, powerd by a pair of GE turboshaft engine made it´s first flight on 11. March 1959. After two years of flight tests the XHSS-2 had to undergo the US Navy Board of Inspection and Survey (BIS) trails to redesignated YHSS-2.

Now officially called Sea King the helicopter was taken by the US Armed Forces almost unchanged, and became part of the standardization program in 1961 with a new designation. HSS-2 changed to SH-3.

The SH-3A was used by the Navy in the Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) and Search and Rescue (SAR) roles. For this task the SH-3A was equipted with a rescue hoist above the starboard fuselage cargo door, and a Bendix dipping sonar. It could armed with up to four aerial torpedos and even nuclear depth Bombs. The aircraft carried a normal crew of four. All models were equipted with hydraulically folding rotor blades with a rotor diameter of sixty-two feet. The tail rotor boom could be folded flat against the starboard side of the fuselage for carrier stowage.

The basic H-3A was built in many different versions. Some variants for example:

The CH-3A was a amphibian cargo/transport version, RH-3A was modified to the Mine Counter-Measure role and the VH-3A is used as a VIP transport and was flown by a joint USMC/US Army unit as the Presidential flight. Besides the US Army found it needed a helicopter with enough range and payload capacity to be able to fly out and resupply the Texas Tower radar sites located out in the Atlantic Ocean off of the New England Coast, as well as be able to recover drones.

As the result, three Navy CH-3A´s were loaned to the US Army, which was so impressed with the range, performance and utility that they demand further three by Sikorsky. To be justice for this job they removed the ASW equipment and the helicopter serialed 62-12571 – 62-12576 and designated CH-3B.

Not long after acceptance by the Army the number four CH-3B (62-12574) dubbed the „Otis Falcon“ flew from Otis AFB Massachusetts to Paris France. Total flight time was 35,5 hours and included stops in Labrador, Canada, Greenland, Iceland and Scotland before landing in Paris. The flight broke the helicopter record for the Atlantic crossing.

The helicopters number four and five were returned to the US Navy and converted to SH-3A standards with full ASW capability, and were used by Helicopter Anti Submarine Squadron ten on the pacific coast, operating as the fleet replacement and training squadron for the pacific fleet out of North Island, Cal. Better known as HS-10 Taskmaster!