So Long, Pave Hawk: Air Force’s HH-60G Combat Rescue Helicopter Completes Final Flight

The Air Force’s HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter made its final flight earlier this month.

The 129th Rescue Wing retired its last HH-60G with a final flight and ceremony on Sept. 10 at Moffett Air National Guard Base, Calif. The Pave Hawk is being replaced by an updated model, HH-60W Jolly Green II.

Tail number 27045 is the last operational HH-60G in the entire Air Force, a service spokesperson said, noting that a few remaining G-models are still in the inventory for now and will be processed out by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.

Often called the “Golf,” the HH-60G entered service in 1982, was the Air Force’s combat search and rescue helicopter for more than 40 years until the updated “Whiskey” models began to supplant it in 2022. Both are UH-60 Black Hawk variants.

In addition to CSAR, the Air Force used the Pave Hawk for disaster relief, humanitarian missions, and casualty and medical evacuations. Capable of carrying eight-plus passengers, it could fly at speeds of 180 miles per hour with a range of 580 miles and be aerially refueled. It was equipped with two guns, a cargo hook that could lift up to 8,000 pounds, and folding rotor blades allowing it to be transported in cargo aircraft like the C-5M Galaxy.

The Pave Hawk played a key role in events like the military’s humanitarian response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, operations during the Global War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the noncombatant evacuation out of Afghanistan in 2021. Airmen were decorated with Distinguished Flying Crosses and Presidential Unit Citations for their actions in the Afghanistan evacuation, where they faced small arms fire from the ground as they evacuated scores of people ahead of the Taliban’s advance.

“When you’re flying the [Pave Hawk], you kind of become one with that machine,” Lt. Col. Benjamin Buchta, HH-60 pilot and commander of the 129th Rescue Squadron, said in a statement. “The Golf feels like home when I sit in it.”

At its peak, there were more than 100 HH-60Gs in the Air Force inventory, split among Active, Guard, and Reserve units. By 2024, units across the globe were saying their final farewells to the Golf—Kadena Air Base in Japan retired its last Golf in August 2024, Gabreski Air National Guard Base, N.Y., followed in October 2024, and Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., and Aviano Air Base, Italy, both completed the switch in December 2024. The Air Force Reserve’s last HH-60Gs left Patrick Space Force Base, Fla., in September 2025.

The Air Force’s fiscal 2026 budget funded the final 11 Pave Hawk divestments. The Alaska Air National Guard retired its last HH-60G in July 2026, setting the stage for the California Air Guard to follow in September, just ahead of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1.

In tributes to the HH-60G, rescue units across the Air Force credited the Golf with helping them save thousands of lives over the years.

The new HH-60Ws have fully digital glass cockpits, improved hot weather/high-altitude performance, on-board self-defenses capable of defeating higher-end threats, larger cabins, and double the internal fuel capacity of the Gs. The Air Force asked for more than $200 million in the 2027 budget request for Whiskey upgrades, including for self-protection against shoulder-fired rockets and conversions to transport VIPs around Washington D.C., which will be a new mission for the HH-60.

All told, the service plans to field 102 Whiskeys, including 11 test and developmental aircraft, with the final delivery due in January 2030, according to budget documents.