AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2016 - 112
PILOTS
COAST GUARD PILOT
LOGBOOK
WHO | Lt. j.g. Alex Martfeld,
Coast Guard pilot
HOURS | 676.9
Lt. j.g. Alex Martfeld
New pilot for a century-old institution
BY PHIL SCOT T
THE U.S. COAST GUARD formally entered the aviation game when
2nd Lt. Charles E. Sugden and 3rd Lt. Elmer F. Stone reported for
aviation training at Pensacola Navy Aeronautic Station in 1916.
Today, one of the branch's newest rescue pilots is 26-year-old Lt.
j.g. Alex Martfeld..
"I didn't have much money, so I didn't get to do much flying on my own," Martfeld said. But when he discovered that the
Coast Guard Academy sends a higher percentage of students to
flight school than the other military academies, he signed on. After
completing basic flight training with Navy and Marine Corps
instructors, he transitioned to the Sikorsky MH-60 Jayhawk and
was assigned to Air Station Astoria, on the Oregon coast.
Around noon during his first search-and-rescue shift, a 600foot tanker reported three injured men in need of immediate
evacuation. The ship was in the middle of a winter storm, rocking in waves 20 to 25 feet high.
112 | AOPA PILOT October 2016
FAVORITE AIRCRAFT | "I love the
MH-60. Other than that it's
hard to choose. I'd have to say
the Vought F4U Corsair; love
the gull wings."
EXTRA | "Getting from 24 hours
in a Piper to a T-6 Texan II
Bravo with a glass cockpit is
pretty wild. It's a big jump, and
a steep learning curve."
"It's a pretty dangerous evolution, hoisting them up off the
ship, because it might put them in higher risk," Martfeld said. One
apparently had broken a femur, and two suffered severe chemical burns trying to help him. The flight surgeon made the call,
and Martfeld found himself flying co-pilot with Lt. Cmdr. Chris
Carter in a storm.
"Any time there's a case like that in the wintertime, it's going
to be pretty bad," Martfeld said. "With a guy like [Carter], with as
many hours as he had in the cockpit, he kept a calm demeanor,
and he explained every decision he made." Decisions such as having the captain steer the tanker into the seas, how to hold ship
and helicopter steady during the brutal storm, the best location
to position the injured sailors on the deck, and how to winch the
guys off the deck as if they were riding an elevator. It took just 2.5
hours from launch to loading the sailors in the ambulance on the
Astoria ramp.
"It wasn't too much of an issue," Martfeld explained. "It's what
you go through flight school to fly helicopters for." Then he displayed what seems like an uncharacteristic burst of elation: "It
was awesome."
AOPA
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2016
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