Tag Archives: MH-60T Jayhawk

USCG Update: Sail drones arrive, Snow Hawks New Special Missions Command

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Lots of updates to our favorite mini-Navy.

Great Lakes sail drone summer stock

A Saildrone Explorer unmanned surface vessel operates with the fast response Coast Guard cutter Robert Goldman in the Arabian Gulf during Exercise Phantom Scope, Oct. 7, 2022. During the bilateral exercise between the United States and the United Kingdom, USVs operated in conjunction with crewed ships and naval command centers in Bahrain. Credit: Navy Chief Petty Officer Roland Franklin VIRIN: 221007-N-NS602-1218

“Leveraging a contract awarded by the Coast Guard to enhance maritime domain awareness, the Great Lakes District will deploy autonomous drones to support Coast Guard missions on the Great Lakes from May to October.”

The drones will be 16 Saildrone Voyager SD-2050 USVs under a $15.5 million contract. The SD-2050 is 33 feet long, draws just over six feet under its fin keel, and has an almost 20-foot-tall wing (sail). All electric with solar panels in the wing (sail), it has a 3.5 kW peak draw, uses an electric motor for cruising at 5 knots, and is good for 100 days between service stops.

Saildrone Voyager SD-2050 deploys on Lake Erie as it begins its border security and MDA mission for the US Coast Guard in the Great Lakes.  Equipped with radar, cameras, AI collision avoidance, and sensors scanning 300 meters deep, they monitor vessel traffic, illegal activity, and support emergency response. Via Saildrone

From USCG PAO:

The drones are wind- and solar-powered vessels the Coast Guard will use to monitor the Great Lakes, gather critical weather data for emergency response planning, track illicit activity, and keep maritime borders safe.

The autonomous vessels are highly visible, equipped with radar, cameras, and collision-avoidance artificial intelligence, and monitored continuously by human operators who can take manual control if needed.

Sail drones are equipped with sensors focused solely on maritime domain awareness, providing critical information on vessel activities, including vessels in distress or engaged in illegal operations.

A sizzle reel of Saildrone operations from last year, when the company’s USVs sailed 383,674nm in 10,217 drone days on the water, and identified 2.5 million surface contacts.

The U.S. Coast Guard Great Lakes (District 9), headquartered in Cleveland, manages operations across all five Great Lakes, the Saint Lawrence Seaway, and 6,700 miles of shoreline and 1,500 miles of Canadian border with roughly 6,000 personnel

Jayhawk snow games

The MH-60T det from U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Sitka recently worked on an avalanche training exercise with the Alaska National Guard and local first responders. In doing so, some incredible shots were captured by AUX Don Kluting, PA2 John Hightower, and AST2 Grooms.

Of note, a Coast Guard helicopter crew from Air Station Kodiak flew nearly 620 miles to rescue two stranded hikers from Makushin Volcano on the remote Unalaska Island. To put that in perspective, that’s the same distance from Massachusetts to North Carolina!

The USCG has been flying the ’60 since 1989, first with the HH-60J and now as the MH-60T– which includes converted surplus USN SH-60Fs.

Moving forward, the service aims to have an all-Jayhawk heli fleet with 127 aircraft replacing the smaller MH-65 Dolphin.

Special Missions Command

The Coast Guard is standing up a new Special Missions Command to oversee its deployable specialized forces.

Slated to form at the start of FY27 (1 October 2026), the SMC will be based at Coast Guard C5I Service Center facility in Kearneysville, West Virginia, about 70 miles as the crow flies from D.C.

Members from the Coast Guard Maritime Security Response Team East (MSRT) patrol the East River during the 79th United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 26, 2024. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Breanna Boardman)

It will fold in the current two Maritime Security Response Teams (MSRT-East, Chesapeake; MSRT-West San Diego), two Tactical Law Enforcement Teams (PACTACLET in San Diego and TACLET South in Opa Locka), seven Maritime Safety and Security Teams (MSST Seattle (91101), MSST Kings Bay (91108), MSST Miami (91114), MSST New York (91106), MSST Houston (91104), MSST New Orleans (91112), MSST Cape Cod (91110)), three Regional Dive Lockers (RDLE Portsmouth, RDLW San Diego, and RDLP Honolulu) and the National Strike Force (CBRN) team along with the eight USCGR Port Security Units.

Members from the Coast Guard Maritime Security Response Team East (MSRT) patrol the East River during the 79th United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 26, 2024. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Breanna Boardman)

Part of the SMC’s buildout will be an $80 million investment to add more than 650 personnel to the service in addition to those being merged. When fully constituted, the SMC should have somewhere around 3,000 personnel, counting reserves and support elements.

The move is a return to the Deployable Operations Group, or DOG, concept that existed from 2007 to 2013, with operational control returning to regional commands once it was disestablished and replaced with the more loosely formed Deployable Specialized Forces (DSF) moniker. From what I gather, DOG wasn’t stood down because it didn’t work, but rather as a money-saving measure and so that local area commanders could keep more control over their shiny local counter-T/high-risk/high-profile units.

In other words, you can look at this as more of a USCG version of NSWC, which is probably a good thing.

A Coast Guard Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT) East patch is shown August 7, 2025, aboard the USCGC Richard Synder (WPC 1127) in Portsmouth, Virginia. The MSRT is a deployable specialized forces unit that conducts counterterrorism and direct-action missions, such as high-risk law enforcement boarding procedures and CBRNE (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive) threats. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Christine Bills)

Remote Work

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For those with a little chill in the air, how about this breathtaking photo from U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater of an MH-60 Jayhawk somewhere in their AOR, likely in the Keys but could be in points further South or West.

Photo by LT Scott Kellerman, USCG

Formed in 1934, CGAS Clearwater currently counts 700 personnel and has 10 MH-60T Jayhawks and four HC-130H Hercules (upgrading to HC-130Js) assigned as well as Port Security Unit 307.

As detailed by base:

We are the largest and busiest Air Station in the Coast Guard. In addition to the local area, our Area of Operations includes the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean basin, and the Bahamas. We constantly maintain deployed H-60s for Operations Bahamas, Turks and Caicos (OPBAT), a joint DEA, Coast Guard, Bahamian Turks and Caicos anti-drug and migrant smuggling operation in the Bahamas. We also have C-130s deployed in support of Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF) operations in the Caribbean. This is done while simultaneously maintaining a constant Bravo Zero Search and Rescue response at home in Florida.

NOLA Jayhawk ( Nee Oceanhawk)

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While bopping around the Gulfport harbor as I often do last week, I saw this bad boy spinning down in the public parking lot next to USCG Station Gulfport, the one typically full of boat trailers on the weekend.

Not that typical…

On closer look, it is an MH-60T Jayhawk, the Coast Guard’s big SAR bird. As only 42 are around, they are pretty rare compared to the more commonly encountered MH-65 Dolphin.

Getting closer still, she sports a “New Orleans” assignment banner on her cowling as well as a gold Fleur de Lis and “Alvin Callender Field” homebase on her hatch. Her number is 6047.

Of interest, of the 42 MH-60Ts on the USCG’s inventory, 39 are converted HH-60J Jayhawk rescue birds, and three are former Navy SH-60F Oceanhawks that were given to the Coast Guard to cover attrition.

Speaking of which, the big Sikorsky we see above was SN 70-1804/ Bu.No 164615, an S-70B-4 (SH-60F) built in 1995. She was seen extensively in HS-11 “Dragonslayers” livery (code AB-612) over the years including deployments with USS Enterprise and USS Theodore Rosevelt until she was converted and refreshed in 2016 to a Jayhawk.

As for U.S. Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans, which was established in 1955 to help close the gap between Mobile and Houston after the old USCG seaplane base at Biloxi was shut down, they have been an all-Dolphin unit for some 35 years. In fact, they were the first operational HH-65 unit in the Coast Guard, and had as many as five of them assigned, putting in amazing work during Katrina.

U.S. Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans sign leaning against a building after hurricane Katrina made landfall in August 2005. 231117-G-M0101-2001

6047 is the NOLA’s first MH-65 as the air station last year began transitioning from the MH-65D Dolphin to the Jayhawk, “which will improve the Coast Guard’s operational capabilities along the Gulf Coast in support of Search and Rescue (SAR), Catastrophic Incident SAR, Marine Transportation System, and the offshore maritime environment.”