Steve Torpey

Two things come to mind.

First of all, we fly at 300 feet most of the time in the Coast Guard.

We're at 300 feet above the water or above the land, mostly water in Alaska.

So there are days where you can look out and see like 8,000 foot mountain peaks covered in snow.

It's an amazing view.

And then there are days where you launch in the middle of the night and you don't see a thing.

I remember flying several hours within a quarter of mile of a very big mountain and never seeing it.

You know, just using the radar, using the GPS to navigate through very narrow fjords to get to a location at 300 feet and never seeing a thing.

Just the nature of flying in Alaska.

That's what makes it so hard.

For me, it was a Friday night.

My wife and I, Carrie, had just kind of settled in for an evening that was rainy and windy, but that's very common in Alaska.

And it wasn't until later on that things got interesting.

So for me, it was just a quiet Friday night.

but the sea wasn't so quiet was it until i got offshore i didn't have any idea what the sea state was so when we were heading out there we were at 300 feet and i couldn't see the ocean it was too dark it was too much sea spray too much rain snow so didn't really see the water until we got into a hundred foot hover and it was then that we realized how big the ocean was i had never seen routine 50-foot waves

And whenever there's a 50-foot wave, there's always some that are bigger.

The H-60 is a beast.

I credit it with my life, honestly.

Without that aircraft, I don't think I'd be able to give this interview.

It has got an enormous amount of power.