Coast Guard Auxiliary's Icy Eyes in the Sky

Leo Ward, Auxiliarist in Flotilla 10-20 Air Station Caldwell, N.J., observes Coast Guard Cutter Katherine Walker as it leads a commercial vessel south through ice on the Hudson River toward the New York Harbor Jan. 24, 2003.

"We really feel like we're contributing," said Graham Roberts, pilot of Flotilla 10-20 Air Station Caldwell, N.J., who along with his observer Leo Ward, fly in a twin propeller four-passenger Grumman Cougar GA-7 taking notes of the ice build-up and report it to local commands.
Their crucial task of reporting the ice literally helps to warm hearths and homes. As they report locations of the ice, Coast Guard cutters move in to break it, enabling commercial barges carrying home heating oil to safely reach their ports.
 

"They do an outstanding job for the Coast Guard," said Chief Warrant Officer Mark Palmer, chief of ice operations at Coast Guard Activities New York.
 

As of January 31, commercial shipping carried approximately 8 million barrels of petroleum products worth about $465 million up the Hudson this year alone to ports like Newburg, N.Y. and Albany, N.Y. During its ice-breaking operations the Coast Guard assisted 35 different vessels ensuring the safe delivery of 451,000 barrels of products worth about $26 million, Palmer said. So far over 2000 miles worth of waterways have been cleared during the current icebreaking season.
Icebreaking operations require a stern knowledge of resource limitations, gamesmanship, and strategy as operational commanders move the various classes of icebreakers throughout ice zones in a battle with Mother Nature, like Bobby Fischer maneuvering chess pieces as he masters his opponent.

It also requires a keen attention to detail and fluid teamwork from Coast Guard cutters and crews. At any one time this season, as many as seven cutters - Penobscot Bay, Sturgeon Bay, Wire, Hawser, Line, Katherine Walker, and Willow - cleared channels for commercial traffic from the entrance to New York Harbor, and up the Hudson River 100 miles to Troy, N.Y.
 

The Coast Guard Auxiliary in the First District Southern Region has 29 aircraft, 40 pilots and 80 observers in use and flew 575 missions last year logging over 2000 hours of mission time in the air, said Frank Tangle, Flotilla commander of Coast Guard Auxiliary Air Station Caldwell, N.J. According to Chief Warrant Officer Tom Peck, Deputy Director of Auxiliary, First Coast Guard District Southern Region, Auxiliary pilots support other Coast Guard missions as well.

"Because Coast Guard resources are almost exclusively supporting Homeland Security missions, the Auxiliary Air Flotillas have become a more vital resource for our legacy missions of search and rescue, and ice reporting," said Peck. "We've asked them to be our eyes and ears, and they continue to do a tremendous job for us."