HSL-42 Maintenance Is 'Golden'

The HSL-42 Proud Warriors was awarded the 2008 Golden Wrench Award by retired Captain(Ret) Greg Hoffman of the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation during a Squadron awards quarters on Aug. 17.

The competition for the Golden Wrench is intense among the HSL Squadrons and this year was no different. The award is presented annually to the squadron with that demonstrates excellence in aircraft maintenance.

In 2008, HSL-42 completed an outstanding year of maintenance excellence while supporting 10 LAMPS MK-III SH-60B helicopter detachments deployed on surface combatants in seven different Areas of Operation across the world. They completed 6,512 mishap-free flight hours during operations in the most challenging environments in naval aviation and flew more than any other HSL command world-wide.

During these flight hours, HSL-42 accumulated more than 950 combined days of embarked operations and completed more than 6,000 shipboard landings. In this period time the Maintenance Department excelled with a HSMWINGLANT leading -.21 average Command Ready Basic Aircraft (RBA) gap and -.5 average Ready for Training (RFT) gap, providing a reliable sensor and weapons platform to Fleet, Battle Group and unit Commanders worldwide.

"Without the tremendous effort and attention to detail put forth by the maintenance department, the winning of this award would have not been possible," said Cmdr. Christopher Failla. "It is their constant effort to go above and beyond that pushes HSL-42 above the rest."

The squadron has surpassed 173,500 hours and 22 years of Class "A" mishap-free flight operations.