Sea Knight resurrection

While on a visit to the Pima Air Museum in Tucson (AZ) René Klok had a lucky day. He had the chance to visit the museum storage area which is normally closed to the public.

In this area he ran into five Boeing-Vertol CH-46E Sea Knights that were subjected to some form of maintenance.

The mechanics told him that these would be made active again and were to be flown to Texas in a few weeks time. They are destined for the National United States Armed Forces Museum in Houston (TX).

Recently, on 19 September 2022, five veteran former US Navy Sea Knights were registered in the US civil register, destined for the NUSAFM. The museum already owns an airworthy HH-46E registered as N7678F.

It flies in its original colours of an US Marines Corps rescue helicopter with serial 157678. These HH-46 were used as plane guards for carrier operations, nicknamed ‘Pedro’.

It is thanks to our former Scramble editor René Klok (thank you!) that we can show you images of the five Sea Knights concerned. It is still unknown if they are all going to make it to Tucson. Seeing the condition of some of the machines we have our doubts but we keep our fingers crossed!


Serial c/n Civil registration
153962 2313 N962EF
154810 2417 N4810F
154853 2460 N4853F
155316 2485 N5316F
157682 2581 N7682F


Photos: René Klok

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