H-53 Aerial Refueling:

I Flight Tested the HH-53B for Aerial Refueling during 19-26 June 1967 at Sikorsky Aircraft Company, Stratford Conn. I had a total of 2 hours flying time in the HH-53B helicopter before the Flight Test Program so I had a lot of fun flying this new helicopter. I flew again with John Parker, Sikorsky Aircraft. I checked out 2 ARRS pilots, Major Skip Cowan and Captain Larry Butera. Major Bob Nabors, the HC-130P Test Pilot, had PCS so we used an operational ARRS pilot, Major Louis Wortman, and ARRS aircraft. The flight test consisted of 10 hours, a very short program. A total of 43,310 pounds of fuel was transferred with 39 aerial refueling connections. We conducted day and night evaluations and the HH-53B performed very well with a lot of power and more stability than the HH-3E. So the test was easy and I also was enroute to a PCS assignment at the University of Arizona for Aeronautical Engineering Master degree through AFIT. Most of the testing was done over the New York Sound and the only problem I had was keeping the ARRS crews there for about 10 days. They kept wanting to go home. A call to the ARRS Commander straightened that out and they were most cooperative after that, and in fact they wanted to stay longer than me. Skip Cowan later became my roommate at Udorn AFB with the 40th ARRS for a short period of time. He and Larry were excellent helicopter pilots and easy to check out like Carl was in the CH-3C. I finished writing the test report at Sikorsky Company and dropped it off at WPAFB on the way to Arizona from Conn. We had already moved out of our house and I had Alice and the three kids with me. It was a fun program and I didn't get to fly the HH-53C until the summer of 1969 at Combat Crew Training at Eglin AFB. I didn't finish the crew training at Eglin AFB because after two flights the instructors were embarrassed for me to keep demonstrating the HH-53C best capabilities, so they made me an Instructor Pilot and put me on a Operational Test of the first Pave Low system.

Don Eastman