MARINE OPERATIONAL TEST & EVALUATION SQUADRON 1
Yuma, AZ and New River, NC.

As the name implies they do operational testing for all Marine aircraft - new acft introduction and system changes. They're located at Both New River & Yuma.

I went from Memphis to HMX-1 in Jan 1967. That’s what it was then.
The Executive Detachment had the VH-3A whitetops in the first hanger (CAGE) across from barracks and the other two hangers had 46’s, a 53, a Huey, a cobra came in and an OV-10 as I was leaving in the spring of 68 for overseas.
It was a great place to learn maintenance as they would fly components for X number of hours and pull them out for breakdown at factory. Boeing Vertol to Willow Grove, PA and Sikorsky to Bridgeport, CT.
It’s when the 46’s were having station 410 problems and we would fly 50 hours on an aft transmission and yank it exactly at 50. Boeing would break it down to check wear and then we would install and put on whatever time they wanted to check it again and again....
I had a chance to return in 2011 with The Old Tigers of HMM-262 and the whole place was (CAGE) and all the aircraft were part of the Executive Detachment.