This year marks the 100th year of U.S. Coast Guard aviation, and much like the Navy did in 2011, this monumental anniversary will be marked by a series of retro paint schemes applied to some of their aircraft. The first in that series is this MH-60T Jayhawk painted just like HH-34 Seahorse, R-5 Dragonfly and HH-19 Chickasaw helicopters during the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s.

Here is the same scheme on a HH-34 Seahorse:


The U.S. Coast Guard began flying on April 1, 1916, when Lieutenant Elmer Stone began flight training in Pensacola, Florida. Fast forward 100 years and aviation has revolutionized how the Coast Guard saves lives and protects our waterways.


The retro MH-60T will operate out of Coast Guard Air Station Astoria for the next four years, but it is just one of the aircraft that will receive historical paint jobs this year. CGAS North Bend, just a couple hundred miles south of Astoria, will get one of their MH-65C Dolphins decked out in a special scheme and 14 other paint jobs will be applied to not just MH-65s and MH-60s, but also HC-144 Ocean Sentries stationed around the United States.

Contact the author at Tyler@jalopnik.com .

