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The Navy will hold its Joint Base Summer Showcase & Expo today and Sunday at Ford Island.
The free public event will include the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum’s “Biggest Little Airshow,” with classic planes, while the Navy shows off currently operating equipment.
The Navy will display its newest Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the USS Frank E. Petersen. The Kaneohe-based Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron Three Seven — the Navy’s only aviation unit currently stationed in Hawaii — also will show off one of its Sikorsky Seahawks and answer questions.
In February 1992, HMS-37 became the first Navy aviation unit to complete the transition from the older SH-2F Seasprite to the Seahawk, which it still uses today. HMS-37 is also the Navy’s largest expeditionary helicopter squadron, operating 15 Seahawks that travel aboard Pearl Harbor-based naval ships when they deploy.
“It’s a proven airframe,” said Lt. Cmdr. Travis Schallenberger. “We’ve just continued to advance the mission systems and avionics to keep up with the times … but we’re not getting rid of them anytime soon.”
The inside of the helicopters is loaded with gear and equipment that allow them to search for submarines and scan the seas for potential threats to ships. Petty Officer 2nd Class Andrew Claiborne, a naval air crewman, said managing the equipment in the air can be cramped.
“You’re just sitting there, you’re sweating,” he said. “It’s not really a comfortable ride. But you know, you got to do the mission set; it’s really fun.”
The USS Frank E. Petersen arrived in 2022 in Honolulu. Older versions of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer didn’t feature hangars and couldn’t deploy with helicopters aboard, but current models can hold two. HMS-37 is preparing to send its first detachment to support the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Daniel Inouye, which is named for the late Hawaii U.S. senator. The USS Daniel Inouye arrived in Hawaii in 2021 just in time for the 80th anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Seahawks and their submarine-tracking capabilities have proved critical to ships as they make their way through the South China Sea, where U.S. and Chinese submarines have been playing a game of cat-and-mouse as they test each other’s capabilities amid rising geopolitical tensions.
China has been embroiled in a series of disputes with neighboring countries over territorial and navigation rights as it argues that almost the entire South China Sea — a critical trade route that more than a third of all goods travel through — is its exclusive sovereign territory. The U.S. has been conducting near-constant “freedom of navigation operations” in the region in response.
But Claiborne said the job he’s most proud of is search-and-rescue operations. In Hawaii, HMS-37 is on standby to assist in missions and trains monthly to ensure members of the squadron can conduct rescues. “It’s really a way to give back to the community,” he said.
Claiborne recently participated in rescuing a woman having a heart attack on a cruise ship about 80 miles north of Hawaii.
“Unfortunately, the Coast Guard wasn’t able to respond due to their helicopter issues,” Schallenberger said. “So we responded, dead of night, sent four folks out there, live-hoisted from the cruise ship, put her in the litter (rescue basket), brought her up and took her all the way back into The Queen’s Medical Center.”
Relations between the military and Hawaii residents have been strained since November 2021, when fuel from the service’s Red Hill fuel storage facility tainted the Navy’s Oahu water system, which serves 93,000 people. The military is now trying remove 104 million gallons of fuel from Red Hill’s tanks, which sit just 100 feet above a key aquifer that most of Honolulu relies on for drinking water.
As many island residents are reflecting on their relationship with the military presence, officials have been looking to step up public outreach.
“We fly all over the island, and the public sees this all the time flying around,” said HMS-37 Squadron leader Cmdr. Brian Mowry. “The public doesn’t get to come onto the bases and see what we do. So for us to take the helicopter into the public eye, take the air crews and show off the helicopter and show off the air crews and show off what we do, it’s a big thing.”
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EVENT SIGNUP
The showcase is free and open to the public, but requires registration.
You can register at: 808ne.ws/3IPun8M
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