Originally Posted by
NickLappos
The CH-53E can operationally lift 32,000 lbs and move it 50 miles return empty and have 30 min reserve. If you remove the wings on a CH47, and the rotors and the engines and the fuselage, and stuff them into a 53E, you could fly all day long and drop pieces everywhere!
Here it is with a 23,000 lb M113:
If I remember correctly, it can also sling another 53E if need be, useful for hauling spares around. Talk about pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.
In more peaceful days when the 53Es weren't all in points East, a 9x36 buoy (9' in diameter, 36' from top to bottom, 18,000 pounds) broke itself free off San Francisco and beached itself on one of the islands outside the bay.
Efforts to free it by boat were unavailing as it's a bit reefy and rocky out there. The Captain rang up the Colonel at (then) Alameda and asked if his boys in the reserve squadron wanted any sling training. The capable fellows from the Corps headed out, picked the thing up, brought it back to the Coast Guard Base (also in Alameda) for guano scraping, repainting, and refurbishing. The Major of Marines who flew the 53E later stated that was the first (and likely the last) time his CO would ever command him to fly UNDER the Golden Gate Bridge.