Took a bike ride down to Tempozan port here in Osaka (my neighborhood!), and was surprised to find six Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ships tying up to the docks, with each ship sporting two SH-60J helos! I took a buncha pix, but sadly this is the only decent one of one of the helos, as it sits on DD-157 Asagiri:
After I took this pic, they unfolded the rotors and fired up the engines, so I thought I was gonna get some cool take-off pix…but the rotors never moved, they shut the engines down, opened an engine cover or two, and folded the rotors back up…much to the dismay of the crowd. Some kind of maintence check?
Anyhoo, hope this pic comes in handy for anybody building an SH-60J.
More pix of the ships are posted in the Ships Forum, if you’re interested.
My brother Victor, who was stationed on the Kitty Hawk at Atsugi 2 years ago, is heading back and joining a SH-60 Squadron but not sure what port / base he’s heading to.
Interesting, Dan! I was living in Fujisawa, right between Atsugi and the Kitty Hawk in Yokosuka at that time. Was he flying off the Kitty Hawk then? I might have seen him buzzing around Enoshima!
LOL…he was an ET for the Vikings and A-6’s that flew on the KittyHawk. I will have to ask him about his station back then. I am also planning a visit to Japan in the fall when he gets situated.
I work at a facility that used to do maint. on Nat Guard UH-60s, & if I remember correctly, if the gust lock is engaged on the main rotor, you can run both engines in GROUND IDLE only. I seem to recall where some maintainers were working on a -60 in this condition, & the maintainer in the cockpit moved the ECL’s way past the ground idle position, which soon broke the gust lock, which let the main rotor spin, which then hit the maintainer who was on top of the aircraft, unfortunately, with fatal results. They were both young & not long in the service when this happened.
