FORT PIERCE, FL -– As the crowd gathered around the National Navy Sea, Air and Land Museum Nov. 19, it became clear this wasn’t a standard military retirement. There was no podium, no colors and no sound system. A small crowd gathered with their eyes fixed on the horizon.
Then, a familiar sound became increasingly audible to the special operators in attendance. That sound was the rotors of two MH-60 Black Hawks, a MH-60K and a MH-60M, as they appeared over the shoreline, flying as a team one final time.
The MH-60K, tail number 388, made it’s long anticipated final flight from Fort Campbell, Ky. to the National SEAL Museum, where it will be demilitarized and put on display.
“The relationship between the Army, the Navy and what we do has been in the shadow for a long time,” said Rick Kaiser, a retired Navy Seal master chief petty officer and executive director of the museum. “A lot of people will ask the same question – ‘Why do you have this Black Hawk in here?’ People always assume it’s Navy aircraft that fly the SEALs around. We will then be able to tell them the story about the relationship between the SEALs and the Army Special Operations aviators.”
The process, which began almost a year prior, required careful coordination between several command elements, branches and offices across the Army; the unit who owned the aircraft – 1st Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, 160th SOAR Operations Section, The United States Army Special Operations Aviation Command Aviation Readiness Branch, the USASAOC Technology Applications and Program Office, the SEAL Museum, and the Army Tank and Automotive Command donations branch. All offices worked together to ensure all the necessary requirements were met in order to legally transfer the aircraft to the museum.
Sergeant 1st Class Joseph W. Evans, USASOAC Aviation Readiness Branch senior maintenance noncommissioned officer in charge, has been working the project since he arrived to the unit in March.
“This is the first time I have had the opportunity to work an aircraft donation for the team,” said Evans. “Previously, I worked with the U.S. Army Center of Military History to divest aircraft [tail number] 288 to the U.S. Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker, Ala. There is a big difference between a divesture and an outright donation to a group not funded by the federal government.”
For the aircraft 388’s final flight, it only seemed fitting that Chief Warrant Officer 5 Ben D. Savage, 160th SOAR’s command chief warrant officer, was in the cockpit. Savage has been training on the airframe since it arrived in the unit 20 years ago.
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