Janna Lambine, the first woman designated a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Coast Guard, started her career in 1977 flying HH-3F Pelican helicopters out of Air Station Astoria.

The U.S. Coast Guard celebrated 100 years of aviation this year.

Air Station Astoria held an open house Saturday at the Astoria Regional Airport in Warrenton, where Coast Guard aviators have been stationed for the past 50 years.

Coast Guard aviation officially began April 1, 1916, when 3rd Lt. Elmer Stone reported to flight training in Pensacola, Florida. That year, Congress had authorized the Coast Guard to establish 10 air stations around the U.S., but provided no funding. Coast Guard aviators started their history based at U.S. naval air stations during World War I.

During Prohibition, interdicting alcohol smugglers was one of the main missions of the Coast Guard. Lt. Cmdr. C.G. Von Paulsen demonstrated the usefulness of aircraft using a borrowed Navy seaplane. Congress later authorized $152,000 for five planes.

In 1943, Coast Guard aviators started training on Sikorsky HNS-1 and HOS-1 helicopters, intended for antisubmarine warfare against German U-boats during World War II. As the U-boat threat waned, the helicopters shifted to search and rescue. The first lifesaving mission delivered blood plasma carried in an HNS-1 helicopter following an explosion on the Naval destroyer Turner near Sandy Hook, New Jersey.

In 1964, the Coast Guard established Air Station Astoria, stationing two single-engine Sikorsky HH-52A Seaguard helicopters at North Tongue Point. The station moved to the Port of Astoria’s Astoria Regional Airport in 1966. The Seaguards were replaced with three larger twin-engine HH-3F Pelicans in 1973.

Air Station Astoria played a special part in women’s history. In 1976, Coast Guard aviation opened to women. Janna Lambine, the first woman designated a helicopter pilot in the Coast Guard, started her career in 1977 flying Pelicans out of Air Station Astoria.

The Coast Guard added two HU-25A Falcon jets to the air station in 1983, doubling hangar space, adding a medical and shop building and adding a third jet in 1988. By 1987, the Pelicans were replaced with three HH-65 Dolphins, one of the most ubiquitous helicopters in the Coast Guard.

In 1995, the Falcon jets and Dolphins were replaced by the air station’s modern helicopters, the MH-60 Jayhawk. A Falcon retired in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, was recently installed on a concrete pad outside the air station. On the tarmac Saturday, next to a Dolphin flown from Air Station North Bend for the occasion, was a yellow Jayhawk the air station received in January. The Jayhawk, painted in the Coast Guard’s former aviation scheme, marks 100 years of aviation and is based at the air station until 2020.