Sikorsky HRS-2 Chickasaw - North Saanich, BC
Posted by: The A-Team
N 48° 38.430 W 123° 25.224
10U E 469030 N 5387578
Located in front of the BC Aviation Museum at 1910 Norseman Road in North Saanich, BC.
Waymark Code: WMHRN1
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 08/09/2013
Views: 5
This particular aircraft, although painted in Canadian Navy colours, never actually served in the Canadian military. It was originally delivered as an HRS-2 to the US Marine Corps on April 1, 1952 with the serial number 129028. It was transferred to the US Coast Guard in June 1961 where it served for two years as an HO4S-3G and later as a redesignated CH-19 before being placed in storage in at NAS Litchfield, Arizona in July 1963. After being in storage for 2 months, it was returned to service with the US Navy. Its last duty station was at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, where it was stricken from inventory sometime in either 1968 or 1969.
After leaving US military service, the aircraft was sold to a civilian owner as serial number N4721. At some point in its civilian career, it may have served as an instructional aircraft at the Academy of Aeronautics in Flushing, New York. On June 20, 1984, while operating as an aerial applicator in Iva, South Carolina, the tail boom was severed during an accident while on the ground. At some later date it was spotted in a very-dismantled state in Langley, BC before being sold to an owner in Victoria, BC in 1997 and then donated to the BC Aviation Museum. The museum restored the aircraft and repainted it in Canadian Navy colours. The paint scheme mimics that of other S-55s that did serve with the Canadian Navy.
Sources:
Aerial Visuals
helis.com
Sikorsky HRS Database