Warbird Information Exchange

Thomas J. Turney

Craig Simmons works on a patch for the Sikorsky HH-52A SeaGuard helicopter he and a team are restoring, Friday, June 12.


"Flying lifeboat" readies for Smithsonian

By William F. West

The Daily Advance

Saturday, June 20, 2015

The sight of old HH-52 search and rescue helicopter immediately brings back lots of memories for Craig Simmons. That’s because Simmons, 66, is a retired Coast Guard chief warrant officer who once served aboard the retired helicopter.

The HH-52 was also known as the Seaguard and has been known to be referred to as the last flying lifeboat.

Simmons works for Elizabeth City-based engineering company VectorCSP. He is one of a team of workers who, in a hangar at the local airport, are restoring an HH-52 that was brought in from California. The so-called flying lifeboat was in service from 1963 until being retired in 1989.

Once the restoration work on the HH-52 at Elizabeth City is completed, the aircraft will be on permanent display in the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The center, which is adjacent to Dulles International Airport, is the companion facility to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

The HH-52 will be the first Coast Guard aircraft that’s part of the Smithsonian’s exhibits.

For Simmons, however, the old helicopter reminds him of the many nights he and search and rescue team members were out on missions at sea.

He particularly recalled a time in the early 1970s, when an elderly couple was on a sailboat, with a tall mast, off the coast of Corpus Christi, Texas. He and his fellow team members had to get the couple aboard the HH-52 because a storm was approaching. And, he said, “We were running out of gas.”

Simmons recalled that the pilot advised his crew that the couple would have to be rescued on the first pass.

“So, we hovered over the sailboat, put the basket on the deck. The sailboat was shifting back and forth,” he said.

Simmons, who was by the hoist cable, could see the couple for a few seconds and that then they would disappear from view.

“I put the basket on the deck and the lady got in the basket first,” he recalled. “She went under the helicopter. When she came back out, I picked her up.”

Simmons said that the woman immediately hugged him, but he told her, “Lady, let me get your husband.”

He said that, with the cable extended to near its limit, he was able to pull the husband up. “And they were happy to be alive.”

Simmons said he believes that the HH-52 is the premier search and rescue helicopter of the Coast Guard.

“This probably rescued more people than any of the other model helicopters we’ve had,” he said.

Mont Smith, 68, is a retired Coast Guard captain who was once the operations officer at Air Station Elizabeth City. He’s also a former president of the Coast Guard Aviation Association, which is comprised of approximately 1,500 active and retired Coast Guard aviation personnel.

Smith, who was recently at the airport to see the progress of the work, said the restoration has been a 10-year effort of the Coast Guard Aviation Association to find and prepare a museum-ready HH-52. He said that the restoration project, which dates back to April, should be complete by January.

Smith said that HH-52 will be dedicated at the Udvar-Hazy facility on April 1, 2016. He noted that this will be timed with the 100th anniversary when the Coast Guard’s first aviator reported for Navy flight training in Pensacola, Fla.

Once the restoration work is complete in Elizabeth City, the HH-52 will be trucked to the Udvar-Hazy facility and carefully reassembled and then suspended overhead.

Smith estimated the project’s cost at approximately $350,000 and said donations and volunteers are welcome.

“This aircraft is going to look immaculate when it’s complete,” he said.

By coincidence, Smith first trained on an HH-52 after completing naval flight training in Pensacola. “She’s a bit of an ugly duckling,” he said. The HH-52 is bulky and not as sleek and low profile as today’s Coast Guard helicopters.

At the same time, Smith said the HH-52 was both functional and fairly lightweight, with the capability of landing on the water.

The HH-52 that’s being restored in Elizabeth City was located at the North Valley Occupational Center, an aviation mechanic training center located in the Los Angeles area.

Smith said that the center was willing to trade the H52 back to the Coast Guard, provided the agency would donate a more modern aircraft that was being retired. So, he said, the center received a former HU-25 Falcon jet and the former HH-52 was trucked by the Coast Guard to Elizabeth City.

One of the VectorCSP workers who’s part of the restoration project is John Siemens, 62, a retired Coast Guard captain who was once the executive officer at Air Station Elizabeth City. He says by today’s standards, the HH-52 is low-tech, “... so it’s easy to take apart and easy to put back together.”

And when the job is finished, there will be a great deal of pride in that project.

“And I want people to be able to walk up to it and see it and say, 'Wow. It’s a beautiful helicopter’,” he said.

Those interested in donating to the project may do so in care of the treasurer, Coast Guard Aviation Association, P.O. Box 940, Troy, VA 22974-0940.