Underway with the USCG Mellon: helicopter units team with cutters in pursuit of drug smugglers.

• Author: Pappalardo, Joe
• Position: Maritime Security - United States Coast Guard - Cover Story

A helicopter gunner is blasting the engines from a smuggler's speedboat, leaving it dead in the water for a small boat crew to board. Catching only the endgame of this airborne interdiction belies the complexity of the operation. It is as incomplete an experience as only watching the last moves of an intricate chess game.

While helicopter operations are familiar to U.S. Coast Guard vessels, more than just guns are added to the equation when they are armed. A host of new procedures, protocols and working conditions become imposed with this capability.

Aboard the USCG Mellon, a 378-foot high-endurance cutter, a National Defense reporter witnessed the actions of the first U.S. law enforcement unit authorized to employ airborne use of force, or AUE A three-man team from the helicopter interdiction tactical squadron, or HITRON, accompanied the Mellon on a deployment through Central America.

"I requested HITRON ever since I got this boat," says Capt. Mark Campbell, the Mellon's commanding officer. "Everybody wants it, but theres not enough to go around."

The squadron has been expanding cautiously since its inception in 1998. First formed with a handful of pilots, there are now 31 who fly armed interdiction missions for the Coast Guard.

The interdiction team consists of a modified MH-68 helicopter, two pilots, a gunner and a civilian mechanic from

Agusta, the company that is leasing the aircraft to the Coast Guard until 2007.

Formed to chase smugglers in small speedboats and disable them with non-lethal gunfire, HITRON is the only operational Coast Guard aviation unit equipped and authorized to use force. It is the squadron's only mission--an oddity in a service with a culture of cross training.

Other Coast Guard air units are responsible for multiple tasks, including search-and-rescue, fishery law-enforcement, aids-to-navigation and counter-drug-surveillance missions.

Integrating the helicopter into the cutter's operations takes a mix of diplomacy, as well as training. Especially when first introduced, tensions between pilots and ship's crews are oft cited by both sides, and evident in behind-the-scenes conversations. As training progresses, however, the divisions close. When there is a job to do, especially a complex one with inherent dangers, everyone must get along. Training increases familiarity--and ideally, mutual respect and confidence.

Campbell is nonplussed by the initial distance between the pilots and his crew, noting that such tension is normal. "They're the newest members of the family," he says in an interview. "The same is true for a new commander, executive officer or engineering officer. When someone's new, there's going to be the same apprehension."

During the pre-deployment workups, the junior officers wait to be impressed. Notified that pilots have brought footage of previous missions, one junior officer cracks: "Of course they did."

But when the helicopter lands for the first time, other crew-members are awed just by the sight of it. Hands waiting to lash the HH-68 to the deck make crude, appreciative comments--cracks usually directed at calendar girls or hotrods. There is lots of wishful talk of the possibility of "morale rides" in the chopper, as is sometimes done with other aviation units. (There will be none.)

Even the ship's cooks, smoking cigarettes on the fantail, speak in fond tones of the increase in ability, and hope the go-fasts try their luck against the new platform. "Even a small bust will let them know we're out there," says one.

The relationship between HITRON and the rest of the Coast Guard is improving as the concept matures, says the patrol's aviation detachment commander and pilot, Lt. j.g. Josue Maldonado. He says the pilots' reputation as "cowboys and guinea pigs" stems from the actions of the earliest members, often former Army Apache pilots who relished having powerful, agile craft. Their attitude and aerial antics--such as buzzing the bridge as close as 30 feet--infuriated captains and executive officers, making others predisposed to dislike the pilots. These days, operating under strict doctrine, the pilots' reputations are improving.

Maldonado takes care to be polite and accommodating. He is careful not to deliver edicts to the captain, but instead poses a weighted range of options. "It's a tactful exchange of ideas," he says with a smile.

HITRON doctrine is still being tweaked. With more helicopters in the fleet preparing to become armed, HITRON crews are still guinea pigs, even if their pilots are losing the cowboy moniker.

Since the Mellon never before hosted HITRON, the preparatory drills between the cutter crew, boarding teams and the newly arrived helicopter crew take on a new importance. The equipment needs to be checked, and the crew needs to know who is doing what while they're in action. Day and night missions must be practiced before the team can run real patrols.

The clock is ticking. Since the Mellon is leaving from San Diego, there is limited amount of time to train before it reaches an area of interdiction operations.

The helicopter and cutter crews must re-qualify for a host of skills, including touch-and-go landings and crashes on deck. The crew must become proficient at tying the chopper down after it lands. Unlike the standard Coast Guard helicopter units, the HH-68 lacks the gear that secures the aircraft by inserting a metal...