Oregon camping, a US Coast Guard AIR Station

June, 2021

On this morning of my last full day of camping here, the skies were overcast, a little grey, but no rain was in sight. I drove out in search of the Astoria airport, thinking I might see some interesting things there, though I had other ideas about other things to investigate if the airport didn’t pan out.

Did I find interesting things at the airport? Indeed I did!

But first, it actually took me awhile to simply find the airport, and then I was driving around the area and found I was very much unimpressed with everything until I turned one particular corner. Hold onto your socks!

We all know that the US Coast Guard has ships … fast inflatables, cutters, buoy tenders, ice breakers (in both the north and south polar regions and ice breakers on the Great Lakes of the USA and Canada), as well as harbor tugs, training boats, cargo ships, and general patrol boats. The US Coast Guard is full of boats and ships of all shapes and sizes.

I guess I knew, somewhere in my mind, that the US Coast Guard also had helicopters … why wouldn’t they? To get personnel from ship to ship, or more quickly from ship to shore and back again, and to get injured folks to medical facilities more quickly than could happen by boat.

But I didn’t have a clue that the US Coast Guard had jet airplanes (and propeller planes too).

I turned one corner of this small, country, black-top road alongside the small airport outside of Astoria, WA, to find this (below) … the US Coast Guard AIR Station … and a jet plane parked right at the entrance.

Here is a link to a PDF document describing many of the US Coast Guard’s vessels and aircraft.

In fact, the US Coast Guard station here near Astoria, on the south side of the Columbia River is ONLY about air … helicopters and airplanes (jet and prop) … that’s all they do here. The US Coast Guard station across the river, on the north side of the river near Ilwaco, WA, has the boats … the boats that head out onto the Pacific to save ships and boats and lives. The two Coast Guard stations work in tandem … one with boats and the other with air support, equally important and both/all head out into the worst of weather to save lives.

As a nod to the origins of the US Coast Guard, just inside the fence down here at the Coast Guard Air facility near Astoria, there was a de-commissioned Motor Life Boat parked here … number 30604. Of course I was impressed with the jet plane, but I gotta admit I liked the boat more. I like boats. 🙂

Everything at this US Coast Guard facility was behind locked gates, appropriately so. But there were a great number of commercial buildings on the “public” airport grounds. So you know me … I started driving around BEHIND the public buildings … through the employees’ parking lots … around past warehouses and such. I turned one corner and headed down a gravel lane, right next to a chain link fence, and past a few commercial dump trucks. And then the gravel road turned 90 degrees to the right (which I did too of course) … and I spotted this off to my left …

Holy smokes, it was the back side of the Coast Guard Air station. The chain link fence was at least eight feet tall, maybe more, and had barbed wire on top of that. The SIX LARGE white doors in the building above open sideways to allow helicopters and airplanes to enter/exit the building, likely for maintenance and such, maybe for storage in inclement weather? In the photo above, there’s a sign above a roll-up door on the left side of the building … let me zoom in for you (below).

“Aircraft Rescue Firefighting”. I hadn’t thought about firefighting as part of the Coast Guard’s duties. But, of course, it would be essential. A boat out on the ocean (or even in the river), in trouble, on fire! The US Coast Guard will head out to the rescue, no question.

So I sat in my truck right there for a while, looking around at those Coast Guard buildings on my left, thinking about things.

And then I heard a rumbling sound, soft at first, but growing in intensity. And then there was a second sound added to the first.

And then I looked over to my right …

The helicopter above had just at that moment started its engines … right in front of me. The blades on top of the “chopper” were started first, and were probably running at a zero degree angle so they didn’t lift the chopper. In the photo above, the blades on top of the chopper look pretty darned flat = no lift. A moment later, the rear blades on the tail were started in order to offset the spin created by the main blades.

The engines warmed up. The blades tilted a bit, this way and that, to test them. The engines revved up faster and then were taken back to idle speed. I was mesmerized. What are the chances that I could have simply happened upon a US Coast Guard helicopter starting their engines and then maybe, just maybe, taking off right in front of me.

So I set my camera on “video” mode and started recording. Here are the three videos I took. (Turn your sound on … click on the small box in the lower right corner of each video to enlarge it … or click on “YouTube” to open it there.)

And then I paused the video for a moment. And it was just before the next video (below) that the helicopter started moving. I was sitting inside my truck with the window open, taking the video out the open window, when I realized I’d be at the wrong angle to keep the chopper in view as it moved. So I started the video anyway, then opened the door of the truck to get out … holding the camera, fumbling for the door latch, stepping down to the ground without stumbling completely, but in so doing, the video gets really jerky, my fault! I just didn’t want to miss anything. So please forgive the jerkiness. It smooths out. 🙂

I imagine all of the zig-zagging they did on their runways was to get the chopper away from the public airport and away from any civilian aircraft that might be taking off or landing on the public airport runways. I also realized that this Coast Guard helicopter might be out of sight from me, blocked by trees, by the time it took off. But still it was so cool to see even this much.

And then … this happened. 🙂

I couldn’t have planned this. They don’t tell the public when a helicopter will be taking off!

You can bet on it … in my travels I will continue to drive around, scope things out, check out ideas for things to see, people to talk with, items to investigate. I will, as a friend suggests … drive slowly, stop often, look at everything. A Caspian Tern yesterday … this US Coast Guard helicopter today … that fellow at the gate of the Columbia River Bar Pilots facility the day before. If any of you folks find yourselves “stuck” driving behind a slow-moving white Dodge RAM pickup truck, please accept my apologies and understand that I’m simply out seeing the world.