For several years, the U.S. Navy’s MH-60S community has been grappling with an issue with the gunner’s seat that has “directly contributed to medical groundings, degraded mission performance and a growing number of chronic back injuries among service members.”
![171026-N-JM744-001[1]](http://alert5.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/171026-N-JM744-0011.jpg)
Photo: U.S. Navy
The issue was serious enough that it has “reached the number two safety priority for all of Naval Aviation,” a press statement by NAVAIR on Dec. 18 revealed.
Originally, the intention was to have the industry to come out with a new seat design, however the top Navy leadership turned to the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD)’s AIRWorks rapid prototyping team to produce a cost-effective solution quickly.
The team took six-months to come up with its initial design and a prototype was ready in September 2016. The new seat was flown on board a HSC-28 MH-60S in November last year.
Since then, the team has been refining and redesigning the seat and a second prototype will be ready in 2018. A replacement is expected in 2019.