Maine is no exception. Almost two-thirds of Maine’s residents live in rural areas, and only three cities in the state have populations greater than 30,000. Three of Maine’s rural hospitals stopped providing inpatient services over the past decade, and five more are seen to be at immediate risk of closure.

As local healthcare options have dwindled, Maine’s rural residents have become increasingly reliant on the state’s only air medical provider, LifeFlight of Maine. Now operating a fleet of three Leonardo AW109SP helicopters with two AW109E maintenance spares and a Beechcraft King Air B200 airplane, LifeFlight provides a critical link between remote communities and the medical services that are only available in larger cities.

“If geography is destiny, should geography make you a second-class citizen in your health outcome?” posed the program’s executive director, Tom Judge. LifeFlight’s answer is no, it should not.

“We’re trying to give everybody that same chance, to the best we can,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter how good the medicine is and it doesn’t matter how good the aviation is, unless you find a way to glue it together.” Gluing it together is what LifeFlight has been striving to do for almost 25 years.

Starting from scratch

Maine is not an easy place to fly. Winters can be brutally cold and extreme temperature swings are common in the spring and fall. During the summer, warm air flowing north from the Gulf Stream encounters cold branches of the Labrador Current just off the coast, creating dense walls of fog that form rapidly and without much warning. Nearly 90 percent of the state is covered by forests, which offer little in the way of forced landing areas.

When LifeFlight was established as a nonprofit organization in 1998, Maine had no other dedicated medical helicopters and not much else to work with: no helipads at the major trauma centers or hospitals, few weather reporting stations, no statewide communication system, and limited fuel availability away from the largest airports. By necessity, LifeFlight had to build not just a program but an entire air medical system from scratch.

“From the very beginning, I took it that one of my jobs was to build an environment that you can operate safely in,” Judge said, emphasizing that air medicine is among the most complex of aviation endeavors with a relentless flow of unscheduled flight requests. “Every one of these questions from the very beginning was: How can we make it safer? And how can we make it more reliable?”

That journey started by addressing the most pressing needs, the ones that would enable safe and effective operations under visual flight rules (VFR). Leveraging state bond funding, LifeFlight facilitated the construction of 32 hospital helipads and installed a radio communications network and 18 automated weather observation stations (AWOS) across Maine. It helped small airports add or upgrade fueling infrastructure so that its helicopters could complete the long round trips required to access patients in remote parts of the state.

Yet, it was always the program’s plan to transition to instrument flight rules (IFR), which Judge saw as crucial to enhancing both safety and reliability — the ability of the program to deliver care even when clouds or fog ruled out VFR. That drove LifeFlight’s initial selection of the IFR-capable Agusta A109, variants of which it has been flying ever since.

LifeFlight and its aviation vendor at the time, Era Helicopters, launched IFR operations in 2005. (Judge described it as a “strategic safety investment,” complemented by the “tactical safety enhancement” of night vision goggles in 2008.) Concurrently, LifeFlight was funding development of the GPS instrument approach and departure procedures it needed to conduct IFR operations to and from hospitals, islands, and certain small airports. Today, LifeFlight has 38 approach and 25 departure procedures, with another 14 procedures in development.

LifeFlight also funded an early IFR route network, which was in place by 2011, and established predictable routes by which its helicopters could transit the state under IFR. However, these routes were fairly wide, which necessitated minimum en route altitudes of 6,000 to 8,000 feet (1,830 to 2,440 meters) mean sea level to ensure adequate obstacle clearance. The high altitudes combined with Maine’s harsh weather limited the routes’ usefulness for the AW109, which is not certified to fly in known icing conditions.

“Generally, once you’re up above 3,000 ft. [915 m] here, you’re seeing pretty significant temperature changes,” Judge said, explaining why the routes were often unusable not only in the dead of winter, but also in the shoulder seasons. “If you can stay below, certainly 5,000 ft. [1,525 m], but even below 3,000 ft. [915 m] or so, you have a much better chance of staying out of [icing conditions].”

Next-gen navigation

Fortunately, there was a solution for LifeFlight’s problem: performance-based navigation (PBN). The PBN concept incorporates both area navigation (RNAV) — the ability of an aircraft to navigate on any desired flight path — and required navigation performance (RNP), which involves onboard performance monitoring and alerting, supported by satellite-based navigation. Together, they allow an aircraft to follow a specified flight path with a high degree of precision. That enables IFR routes to be narrower, meaning they can avoid obstacles and terrain that would otherwise require higher clearance altitudes.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has established RNP 0.3 as the PBN standard for rotorcraft. This specifies that a helicopter be able to stay within 0.3 nautical miles (0.5 kilometers) laterally along a track for at least 95 percent of the total flight time. Whereas standard airways are 8 nm (14.8 km) wide, an RNP 0.3 route can be just 1.8 nm (3.3 km) across, consisting of a 0.6 nm (1.1 km) primary area and a 0.3 nm (0.5 km) secondary area on either side of the centerline.

LifeFlight was early in recognizing the potential of PBN for helicopter IFR and helped campaign to make it a federal priority. In 2016, the FAA published its PBN NAS (National Airspace System) Navigation Strategy, which identified helicopter IFR routing and PBN approaches as a focus area, with a special emphasis on approaches to hospitals.

The same year, the standards body RTCA established a tactical operations committee to further develop a strategy for PBN. It issued a number of recommendations in 2017, including that the FAA should initiate a demonstration project implementing an RNP 0.3 helicopter route. Acknowledging that the FAA had already completed one RNP 0.3 demonstration project that spring in partnership with the Maryland State Police and the Potomac TRACON, the committee said this initial project “should be expanded and the lessons learned [and best practices] be leveraged for future helicopter route development.”

In 2019, Senator Susan Collins of Maine spearheaded the first of several $5 million appropriations to launch a demonstration project with LifeFlight due to the nature of its lifesaving services and statewide infrastructure to support low-altitude IFR. Compared to more congested airspace, Maine also had the advantage of being relatively quiet and out of the way, giving the FAA breathing room as it sought to develop its own capabilities and replicable processes.

The FAA launched the project in early 2020 on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although work has not proceeded swiftly, the first RNP 0.3 route, ZK362, is now complete, with six more primary routes and 17 sub-routes in development. All of LifeFlight’s existing approach and departure procedures are also being revised to connect more efficiently to the new routes, which have minimum en route altitudes below 3,000 ft. (915 m). The first routes will enable seamless IFR operations between 21 hospitals and 17 airports from the far reaches of northern Maine to the New Hampshire border, covering around 80 percent of the state’s population. Routes into the western mountains will be the next step.

According to Dave Burr, LifeFlight’s director of aviation operations, the new system will make helicopter IFR operations safer and more predictable, not only for flight crews but also for air traffic control. “It’s better for everybody,” he said. “We’re proving that it works.”

To make it work, however, LifeFlight had to upgrade to helicopters capable of meeting the RNP 0.3 performance standard. In 2016, it launched a five-year, $20 million capital campaign that supported the acquisition of three new AW109SP helicopters, which feature enhanced avionics and four-axis autopilots. They replaced LifeFlight’s previous AW109E helicopters in 2020, 2021, and December 2022, respectively.

Growing capabilities

LifeFlight achieved another milestone in 2022: completing the transition to its own FAA part 135 operating certificate. “Doing our own 135 was a big leap forward, because not only are you getting that local knowledge, you’re tailoring your certificate to your area,” said Josh Dickson, who joined LifeFlight in 2007 and is now director of aviation services. “So, if you were to take our GOM [general operations manual], it’s written for Maine, it has examples for Maine and is tailored for this operation.”

Bringing aviation in-house also reinforced LifeFlight’s commitment to IFR operations, which Dickson said the program is doing more of than ever before. Pilots are now encouraged to file and fly IFR as often as possible, not just when weather conditions demand it.

“By the repetition of doing it, not only are they maintaining proficiency, but if the weather gets bad, they’re already on an IFR flight plan, or they at least have one on file,” he said. “The other advantage that people don’t talk about is it’s actually good for the controllers, too, because they also need the exercise of pulling up our lesser-used PinS [point-in-space] approaches.”

Meanwhile, LifeFlight continues to invest in other aviation infrastructure throughout the state: adding more remote fuel depots, replacing AWOS installations, and extending runways at rural airports. Notably, it is now in the process of installing a statewide network of remotely controlled weather cameras, supported by a grant from the Maine Emergency Management Agency. By the end of 2022, LifeFlight had installed 15 of a planned 35 weather cams.

“We’re doing two things,” explained LifeFlight’s infrastructure engineer, John Rolfson, who is also responsible for maintaining the program’s statewide AWOS and radio communications networks. “The first is, our dispatchers and our pilots here are going to have the ability to pull up these cameras on a live viewing platform and see real-time video. So that’s a piece of it. And then the second part is, how do you benefit the general aviation community? How do you get it out there for everybody to use?”

For that, LifeFlight has partnered with the FAA to make its camera feeds available on the agency’s WeatherCams website, helping to gradually populate its still mostly blank map of the contiguous U.S. with real-time imagery of actual weather conditions. The first of LifeFlight’s camera feeds were online and available to the public by the end of the year.

Gluing it all together

For LifeFlight, its investments in aircraft and infrastructure aren’t simply a way to make its aviation operations safer and more effective — they’re essential to its medical mission, too.

“We don’t look at airports as just airports — we look at them as healthcare access points,” said Dickson, noting that their significance has only grown as rural hospitals have closed or cut back on services. Small communities may not have the population to support a cath lab or a neonatal intensive care unit, he said, and “some places lack a hospital or even a clinic in their area. But we can work with a community to extend a runway and add a couple of instrument approaches,” which then becomes a way to “plug that hole” in the healthcare system. These investments can create a more sustainable model by which to deliver rural healthcare in some scenarios, he suggested.

Judge predicted that a fully developed IFR system will incrementally improve LifeFlight’s reliability by six percent to eight percent, which he acknowledged doesn’t sound like a lot on the face of it. “But that’s a couple hundred people a year,” he said. “And for those 150 or 200 people, that’s actually really important for them, because for some of those people, it’s life or death.”

The post Systems Thinking: LifeFlight of Maine appeared first on Vertical Mag.

After completing the helicopter in early December 2022, members of the aviation unit flew to Tennessee and ferried the helicopter to California where, in mid-December, the unit rolled the aircraft out at its hangar at Camarillo Airport.

The unit’s new 412EPX, now designated Copter 9, replaces the former Copter 9, a Bell UH-1. The aircraft joins the unit’s remaining two Huey helicopters — a Super Huey and a Bell 205B — along with a Bell 206 Long Ranger and three Sikorsky HH-60Ls — two of which have been converted to the Firehawk configuration.

The Bell 412EPX is the aviation unit’s first completely new purchase in its 50-year history, and at press time, Ventura County is the first operator in the U.S. to take delivery of a 412EPX configured for public safety.

As a brief refresher, the Ventura County Aviation Unit was founded in 1971 and is based at Camarillo Airport. It is the only public safety aviation unit in the county. While the aircraft are owned by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, the helicopters are jointly operated by the sheriff’s department and fire department, which contributes funds to help support the unit. The sheriff’s department is primarily responsible for search-and-rescue (SAR), medevac, and law enforcement operations, while the fire department is responsible for fire suppression activity.

Ventura County has a total area of 2,208 square miles (5,718 square kilometers) — of which, 1,843 sq. mi (4,773 sq. km) is land and 365 sq. mi (945 sq. km) is water. Being within reach of most of the county within minutes, crews from the aviation unit are often the first emergency service resources to arrive on scene, and when faced with rugged terrain unreachable by other means, it is often the only unit that can provide critical first response. Between January 2020 and January 2022, the aviation unit flew more than 1,600 flights — over 500 specifically for SAR and medevac missions.

The move to Bell 412EPX

“The decision to buy a brand-new helicopter has been a wish list item within the unit for years,” Capt. Randy Downard from the aviation unit told Vertical Valor. “However, it was my predecessor, Jeremy Paris, who really began the process of putting this together, from the decision to make the purchase, to working with pilots and aircrews, to narrowing it down by looking at what was available on the market, to actually making the decision that the Bell 412EPX was the right choice. He and the crews here led that charge. About two years ago when I first [became] the new captain, the final decision had been made that Bell’s new 412EPX fit the bill for us perfectly. I was the one tasked with presenting this to the county officials, explaining the reasons, the timelines and the costs.”  

He said the unit’s existing Hueys were built between 1969 and 1975. Not only were parts becoming difficult to find, the helicopters began showing signs of wear and tear with reliability issues.

“All of our Hueys have experienced cracks in the airframes, and while the cracks were repairable these repairs are expensive and resulted in increased aircraft downtime and costs to the county,” Downard said.

By buying the newer helicopter, it has allowed the unit to sell two of the older Hueys, which will overall mitigate those issues, he said.

As the aviation unit can potentially field calls from the coastline, out over open water all the way to the Channel Islands, and then up into remote and snow-covered backcountry at higher elevations, the unit needs a very capable asset. The 412EPX allows them to work at those higher altitudes. It gives them the ability to navigate poor weather safely by incorporating many of the latest safety features on the helicopter not found on the older Hueys.

With the 412EPX’s maximum range of over 450 nautical miles (833 kilometers), maximum cruise speed of 140 knots (260 kilometers per hour), and maximum altitude of 15,500 feet (4,725 meters), it can reach most parts of Ventura County within minutes.

Powered by the Pratt & Whitney PT6T-9 twin engine with a full authority digital engine control (FADEC) system and a four-blade system, beyond just the speed and altitude capabilities, the 412EPX offers increased performance. This includes the ability to operate in higher wind conditions, have increased load capacities, and continue flying after the total failure of one of its two engines. 

Additionally, because of its advanced digital cockpit, which includes a fully glass cockpit display system, advanced avionics and digital four-axis autopilot situational awareness, flight safety and handling qualities are all improved for pilots.

Because Ventura has been a Huey operator for decades, Downard said the unit “dealt with Bell directly with the full purchase, design, and equipment selection that we wanted on this new helicopter.”

“As a brand-new factory purchase, the unit had never done that before, but for us, it was not too hard to figure out what we needed as we based the decisions primarily on our experience with the four Hueys that we have had in our fleet for years, and similarities between the platforms,” Downard added. “Bell was also great to work with throughout this entire process. We wanted to take what we had and modernize it with the most current equipment available today for a number of reasons — the safety of flight, the efficiency and performance of the newer platform, and the requirements for the services we provide, all while being aware of the always important budget.” 

By purchasing the Bell product, the aviation unit has been able to retain and use about $2 million of equipment, spare parts, and tools already owned by the county. And because all of the current water tanks, hoists, and medical equipment from the Huey are compatible with the newer 412EPX, ultimately, the new helicopter will provide savings in the long run for the county.  For these reasons, when presented with the proposal to buy the new build 412EPX, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved funds for the purchase.

Based on an estimated mid-December arrival of the helicopter to Camarillo Airport, training was supposed to begin within a couple weeks, but due to various factors such as the severe weather Southern California faced throughout the winter, getting all the pilots and aircrews trained on the new aircraft took longer than planned.

Despite those challenges, the transition onto the 412EPX has been relatively seamless. The 412EPX has required no changes to current remote landing pads throughout the county, hoist rescue operating procedures and training, and other standard operating procedures for the unit’s different mission sets. Having experienced pilots and aircrews from both the sheriff’s and fire departments all familiar with the Huey platform also made this process easier.

“For us, the new helicopter is interchangeable with the old one,” a member of the aircrew said. “We could put someone in the back of the Huey with their eyes closed, then walk over to the 412EPX, put them in the back, have them open their eyes and the look and feel of the medical deck and cabin is the same.” 

With its instrument flight rules (IFR) capabilities, increased payload capabilities — up to 12,200 pounds (5,533 kilograms) — and most importantly, the dual engines with more power and torque allowing for fly-out capabilities during emergencies, the 412EPX is a much safer helicopter to operate, the pilots said. This is especially crucial over the ocean or rugged mountains where precautionary emergency landings cannot happen. With everyone in the unit now qualified and up to speed, the 412EPX recently began flying on actual calls throughout the county.

Looking ahead

The goal of the aviation unit is to have one large Firehawk and one medium Bell asset available at all times. This plan allows for the Firehawk to continue to function as the primary firefighting resource for the county due to its speed and heavier load carrying capabilities, and the 412EPX to be the main resource (along with the remaining Hueys) for SAR, medevac, and law enforcement. That being said, the 412EPX will also be able to provide fire suppression support when needed, with the 360-US gallon (1,360 liter) Simplex Fire tank installed. 

“For the overall size [and] the jurisdictional area of Ventura County, and as we have touched on the varied terrain we typically operate in, for us having a fleet that can manage all our missions and not have to worry is ideal,” Downard said about what the 412EPX means for Ventura County and the aviation unit. 

He said the goal of acquiring their newest assets — not just the most recent 412EPX, but also the Firehawks the unit brought in within the last few years — was to make sure that crews can handle the four basic missions they receive: law, fire, SAR and medevac, and carry them out in all types of terrains and altitudes safely and effectively. 

“We are now more comfortable than ever being able to handle all those services and more, with the best possible equipment at this point in time,” Downard said. “The Hueys served us well, and the two we have left will continue to serve us into the near future, but modernizing our fleet, even strictly for the safety of flight, was important.”

He said the unit plans to eventually replace the remaining two Hueys with one more 412EPX, which would set the unit up for the future. That would give crews two medium and two heavy assets, and with their ability to cross over mission sets, the unit will be able to provide the most capable services to the county effectively for the next 20 to 30 years.

“Even with the one 412EPX now, replacing some of our older Hueys, to put it in the simplest terms, has been like going from driving a 1970 Chevy pickup to a 2023 fully loaded GMC Denali,” Downard said.

The post The new kid in town: Ventura County Aviation Unit’s new Bell 412EPX appeared first on Vertical Mag.

Launching at 2:30 a.m., into a night illuminated only by lightning bolts from the storm, Briggs and his crew battled winds exceeding 80 knots (150 kilometers per hour) and visibility down to 50 feet (15 meters).

Called to assist a critically ill pregnant woman trapped in her attic by rising floodwaters, rescue swimmer Tyler Gantt was hoisted between high tension powerlines and 100-ft. (30-m) tall trees, only to discover an entire family sheltering in the building.

Back in the helicopter, the rain and wind were so savage that the aircraft began to flood, and soon its equipment started failing. One by one, the stabilization system, avionics and intercom systems gave out — the crew yelling at each other to communicate while they struggled to keep their helicopter in the air. Then, with the rescue swimmer on the ground and waist deep in rapidly flowing water, the hoist stopped working.

With no way to bring his fourth crewmember back on board, fuel critically low, and systems only just functioning enough to keep the helicopter airborne, Briggs was forced to do the unthinkable. His co-pilot turned the aircraft around and headed back to base, leaving their rescue swimmer behind on what was his first ever search-and-rescue (SAR) call.

Incremental improvement

Now a Lieutenant Commander, Briggs is based at Air Station San Francisco, where he is the assistant operations officer. While this brings a deep involvement in the management of operational risk, his role as an instructor pilot is also to prepare other Coast Guard aircrew for the challenges of the job.

“It means taking newer pilots through the syllabus for qualification, and making sure that people are staying standard within their flight protocols,” he explained. “But I also stand a search-and-rescue duty, like every other pilot in the unit.”

Briggs has had a somewhat unconventional career, initially enlisting for service onboard ships before becoming an avionics technician and then qualifying as a flight mechanic, which made him responsible for operating the hoist and managing the aircraft cabin during rescues. He has been qualified in a crew position in every model of the MH-65, including the latest Echo variant which brings the aircraft into the digital age with a full glass cockpit.

Developed as a version of the Aerospatiale Helicopter Corporation (now Airbus Helicopters) AS365, the Dolphin was designated the HH-65 upon its entry into service in 1985 as a short-range recovery aircraft. An impressively well-equipped helicopter from the outset, it was able to operate from Coast Guard cutters, certified for single-pilot instrument flight rules (IFR) operation, and came with a four-axis autopilot.

Incremental upgrades over its service life have taken the aircraft from initial Alpha through to Echo variants, which have brought compatibility with night vision goggles (NVGs), more powerful and reliable Safran Arriel engines, as well as upgrades to the Fenestron and avionics. From the Charlie models, the aircraft adopted the MH-65 designation to better reflect its multi-role mission set and airborne use of force capability for the Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON) mission.

“The major difference between the Delta and the Echo is the avionics suite, but the airframe remains the same,” Briggs said. “The 65 has proven to be a good platform for SAR over its 30-plus-year lifespan. It’s definitely been the workhorse of the fleet.”

It is a workhorse that has been put to use all over the U.S. — from Hawaii to the Great Lakes, and out at sea on the Coast Guard’s cutter fleet. And at Air Station San Francisco, there is plenty of trade for the crews.

“We have kind of a mild climate year-round,” explained Petty Officer 1st Class Jacob Wolf. “We do medevacs from cruise ships and fishing boats, and there’s a lot of kite surfing and windsurfing around here. Those guys get stuck out all the time.”

As an aviation maintenance technician and flight mechanic, Wolf has the responsibility of keeping the aircraft airworthy in addition to his role in the crew as the hoist operator.

“I think it instills a little bit more pride in what you’re doing on the aircraft and on the hangar deck,” he said. “It’s a good mix, but I’d say you’re on the hangar deck more than you’re actually flying on average.”

Both the flight mechanics and the rescue swimmers are drawn from the enlisted ranks and begin their Coast Guard careers as non-rates following an initial training boot camp. This gives newcomers to the service a chance to see what trades are available before applying to their A-School for trade training. Aviation is a popular choice.

“It’s one of the more popular rates within the Coast Guard,” Wolf explained. “I worked for six months at an air station as a non-rate, and then went to A-School in Elizabeth City, [North Carolina,] and that was five months of training.”

Power Train

The North Carolina base is one of the Coast Guard’s busiest. It is home to the Aviation Technical Training Center, where the prospective flight mechanics will be expected to become technical experts in the mechanics of their aircraft. Graduation is followed by assignment to an air station and qualification as basic aircrew — their first qualification to fly as an aircraft crewmember and get familiar with the flying environment on training flights.

“It’s kind of like a waiting process to get qualified because it takes time to train everybody,” Wolf said. “Once you start your flight mechanic training, it’s a crawl, walk, run process.”

Full qualification as a flight mechanic will mean a place on operational SAR missions, so it is rigorous and involves a progression from basic hoist operations on a static aircraft through to the deployment of rescue swimmers into the water. The modern training program takes full advantage of synthetic and virtual reality (VR) environments that allow trainees to experience hundreds of repetitions of the most vital motor skills.

As a flight mechanic himself earlier in his career, Briggs was instrumental in setting up this new approach to training.

“They use a VR headset to train maneuvers and procedures,” he explained. “We want them to communicate in a very standardized way, and by doing 250 to 300 reps, they get the ‘muscle memory’ and it shortens the amount of time needed in the helicopter. They go into it with more confidence that they’re doing the procedure correctly.”

As vital as it is in developing the skill sets required to operate the hoist correctly, synthetic training is less applicable for the rescue swimmers themselves.

“They’re athletes,” Briggs said. “Uniquely qualified in that position, and they need to be able to drop into the ocean and operate independently, alone and unafraid.”

Aviation Survival Technician 2nd Class Tony Borr is one of the rescue swimmers at Air Station San Francisco.

“I wanted to do something outside the box — something most people wouldn’t do,” he said about what led him to his career.

Jumping from a helicopter into the open ocean to rescue people in distress seemed to fit those criteria, so Borr applied to join the Coast Guard while in college. A-School graduates in his rate are initially qualified as aviation survival technicians and become rescue swimmers after completing a grueling training course at their active unit.

As with the rest of his crew, though, qualifying in the role is only the beginning of a continual process of improvement, development, and refinement. Post-graduate training for Coast Guard aircrew is even more intense, culminating with the Advanced Helicopter Rescue School in Astoria, Oregon, which provides the high sea states and rugged cliffs and caves used to hone the edge of Coast Guard crews who are already highly skilled and experienced.

Again, Briggs has a unique perspective, having instructed the course both as a flight mechanic and a pilot.

“Things get very difficult — high seas, high winds, big wave action. It creates a really difficult environment,” he said. “Every single person in the crew is important and I rely on those crew members 100%. I didn’t realize how important my position was as a flight mechanic until I was a pilot.”

The relentless training and extreme exposure to the elements is essential to develop the skills required not only to survive in those conditions but also to continue to operate. To be highly effective despite the environment doing everything it can to stop them takes an extraordinary training effort in skills that fade very quickly, and so they must be constantly refreshed.

But the intensity is important not just to teach and test the physical skills, it is also essential for building the confidence of the crews both in themselves and each other, and for teaching them how to combine their efforts in a way that optimizes their performance as a crew. It is the ultimate team effort, which depends on mutual respect.

“Sometimes, the least experienced person in the helicopter has the answer that we need because they are looking at it from a fresh direction,” Briggs explained. “We are always problem-solving and it’s never the same. So, we have a lot of creative thinkers and we need to cultivate that.”

Harnessing and molding an open, creative culture in an environment where risk must be weighed against human life is an astonishingly difficult challenge. The Coast Guard goes to great lengths to define the envelope of risk and provide a framework that crews must use to ensure that they are taken only where necessary.

Risk and reward

“We have to nail down what is the gain of the mission, and at the highest end of that spectrum is saving human life,” Briggs explained. “Secondly, what is the risk? And we have to look at the whole environment — from weather, day or night through to crew composition and fatigue level. All of these factors come together to a decision about what our risk is, and we divide that into red, yellow and green.”

The color codes indicate when the risks need to be elevated beyond the crew to higher authority for objective scrutiny, but every member of the crew gets a say.

In cases where they perceive there is no other way to save a life, Coast Guard crews are authorized to fly the aircraft beyond its normal operating limits to the extent that it will effectively destroy the aircraft.

“We can sacrifice the aircraft,” Briggs said. “But I cannot sacrifice a crew member in the effort to save another human life.”

In reality, such extreme decisions are rarely clear-cut. In the moment, outcomes are highly contingent and almost impossible to predict, and crews must make a judgement call, as was the case at 3 a.m. on Aug. 27, 2017, when Briggs was forced to return his barely flyable helicopter to base without his rescue swimmer.

“It didn’t feel good to leave him,” Briggs said. “It was his first search-and-rescue case ever, but he was well trained.”

When Briggs and his crew returned to the scene to recover Gantt, they completed an historic onload of 14 survivors, well beyond the normal load capacity of the aircraft.

The confidence and trust that Briggs and his crew had in their rookie rescue swimmer can only have been matched in his confidence that they would return, despite the incredible risks of doing so in such a compromised aircraft and in those weather conditions.

“I really like working with other people that are likeminded, believe in the mission and are willing to train hard for that mission,” Briggs said. “They’re willing to accept some risk, but they’re smart about the risk they’re accepting. I enjoy that.”

As important as trust and confidence in their skill and dedication are to the crews themselves, they are perhaps even more important for the other parties involved in any rescue. One of the most critical elements of survival is maintaining the will to live. In many cases, a person’s ability to stay alive in extreme circumstances is credited entirely on their hope of being rescued.

“To me, search-and-rescue is a very personal thing in that it is the biggest moment of someone’s life,” Briggs said. “Think about the worst-case scenario of someone’s loved one on a sunken fishing boat. They’re on their own, and I want to be able to give them an amount of hope that they can count on.”

For their valor, pilots Lt. John Briggs and Lt. Greg Bukata, and rescue swimmer Petty Officer 3rd Class Tyler Gantt were decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight.

Aviation maintenance technician Petty Officer 1st Class Chris Flores was decorated with the Air Medal, awarded for heroic or meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight.

The post Only Hope: Behind the scenes at U.S. Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco appeared first on Vertical Mag.

By the end of 2023, ultralight eVTOLs like the Lift Hexa and Ryse Recon will be in the air, and with that, eVTOLs will be introduced in the U.S. for the first time in history. This first impression will resonate for years to come and hopefully, only in positive ways.

“Beyond military use and first responder applications, we plan to make Hexa available around the country for people to experience eVTOLs for themselves, starting this year. We also plan to set up permanent flight locations,” said Kevin Rustagi, a spokesperson and director of business development at Lift. “We’ve already presold 4,000 tickets [$249 each] for a series of short flights along with VR simulator training. Having flown Hexa, I can say that it’s incredibly fun.”

Lift’s customers will go through a three-part simulator training and then three actual flights with a dedicated instructor in constant communication. The first flight, for example, encompasses auto-takeoff, climbing vertically to about 15 feet (five meters) and then landing using auto-land.

“The more people become familiar with eVTOL aircraft, the more open they’ll be,” Rustagi said. “People saw Anderson Cooper fly a Hexa on 60 Minutes, but it will be different for people to see it in person and fly one themselves.”

“We’re all about making eVTOL flight accessible to everyone,” added Balazs Kerulo, chief engineer and lead designer at Lift. “The earlier ultralight companies like Lift start flying, the earlier we can garner public acceptance for the industry as a whole. ‘Flying cars’ have been discussed since cars first arrived, so it’s not a new concept. What’s new is that ‘flying cars’ are real.”

Anticipating perception

Most in the eVTOL industry already realize that this will be the introduction of eVTOLs to the U.S. market — watching others fly small one-person ultralight eVTOLs and/or actually flying one — and that it’s going to happen very soon.

As mentioned, from the overall public perception of the eVTOL industry, there’s a lot riding on the launch of ultralight eVTOLs. This includes perceptions of safety, of course, but also noise and more.

One question is whether the public will see these small aircraft flying around and view eVTOLs in general as financially unattainable.

“There may be a perception among some that they could only be for the rich,” said Erik Stephansen, vice president of regulatory affairs and aerodynamics at Ryse. “But we are going to launch with a price that’s about one-tenth of a helicopter, which makes it possible for many more people to own one.” 

This is still not affordable for the everyday person, of course, but that’s always been the case with ultralight aircraft.

“We will be selling to private owners and are making test flights available to potential customers,” Stephansen said. “There will be those who want solely the adventure of private flight, but we already have many customers who have preordered who own farmland and ranchland. An ultralight eVTOL allows you to go as the crow flies, and do tasks very efficiently. We have more demand than we can fill through to the end of 2024 already.”

He added that “ultralight eVTOLs are a great place to start eVTOL flight. They will allow the industry to crawl, walk and then run. Being at shows like CES in Las Vegas — we were the first to fly there — has also helped with familiarization of the public. We will continue to be at events this year.”   

Emergency use

Perceptions that eVTOLs are only for the rich and have no benefit to society may be negated by the plans of ultralight eVTOL firms like Lift to introduce emergency response uses right away. This may help the public understand the even broader range of uses that will come when larger type-certified (TC) eVTOLs are introduced in the U.S. — several months later in 2025.

“For emergency response, there are a variety of eVTOL use cases for ultralights and TC aircraft alike,” Kerulo said. “A paramedic could fly Hexa to the scene of an emergency, quickly and above traffic, to stabilize a patient. From there, they could send the patient back to the hospital in Hexa, flown remotely. Water rescue, manned/unmanned teaming, search-and-rescue — there are literally hundreds of use cases.”

Many companies introducing TC eVTOLs are preparing use case demonstrations and other public awareness activities for their larger aircraft that will coincide with — or will follow — the launch of ultralight eVTOLs.

For example, the two-seat VoloCity from Volocopter, now in the process of obtaining European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification, will be taking center stage at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. In EASA’s study on the social acceptance of urban air mobility in Europe, the agency identified Paris as the most promising city for airport shuttle and sightseeing use of eVTOL aircraft.  

Regulatory change?

No eVTOL company, whether ultralight or TC, wants an accident.

From Lift’s perspective, Kerulo noted that “the fear is that a flight incident would set the industry back, and so it’s paramount that we all remain safety-focused.” 

Rustagi added, “We’re rooting for our competitors. The market is immense. We want the pioneers to do well, to survive and thrive, to lay the foundations for the industry.”

Stephansen had similar thoughts. “We are all in this together,” he said, adding that electric propulsion provides extra redundancies.

Operationally, there are also safety features in eVTOLs such as auto-land and auto-takeoff. And in the Recon, for example, if you let go of the controls, it just hovers.

“There are so many safety features,” Stephensen said. “Having said that, I do think true and full acceptance of the safety of eVTOLs will come later, from the operation of the larger eVTOLs as they’ll be flying over cities.”

But to perhaps add extra assurance that there are no accidents with the first wave of eVTOLs to fly — that is, the ultralights — should a set of minimum safety features be mandated in ultralight design under the U.S. ultralight regulations (Part 103)? And should restrictions in this regulation pertaining to where people can fly an ultralight and at what speed and altitude be updated with the arrival (and expected large volume) of ultralight eVTOLs?

Tom Charpentier, government relations director at the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), described 103 as “a very unique and limiting rule.”

“To the question that’s been asked over the years of whether it should be changed, our answer is always no,” he said. “It will lose its regulatory uniqueness and changing it would risk losing the operational freedom that Part 103 allows. The FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] will find a way to regulate ultralight eVTOL use to a level it feels protects public safety.”

Rob Hackman, EAA vice president of government affairs, noted that developing standards and regulations for eVTOL aircraft and operations is taking some time, but the FAA and industry need to get it right.

“The FAA gets criticized for moving slowly, but operating in the national airspace system, a system already utilized by many different aircraft and pilots, is a very complex issue,” he said. “Just like operating on roads and highways, when piloting an aircraft, everyone needs a thorough understanding of the operating rules and how to operate safely, no matter what type of machine they are piloting.”  

For his part, Stephansen describes Part 103 as “very solid but also left open for interpretation.”

“It has allowed for thousands of different ultralights to come to market and be flown safely since the regulation was created in the 1980s,” he explained. “Partly because of the regulatory openness, thus, allowing for new safety innovations, ultralight is a very safe aircraft category. Part 103 ensures safety, limits risks, and supports personal flying freedoms. I think it strikes a really good balance between these. When you think about it, it’s quite amazing that a framework from the 80s is still applicable today. It’s got a proven track record.” 

Hackman adds that the EAA and others also have a strong history of spending a lot of time educating ultralight aircraft operators about the laws on how and where they can operate, as well as the importance of “fly friendly” practices and respect for the non-flying public.

“Hopefully, this philosophy will continue with ultralight eVTOL use,” he said. “This will be an important part of public acceptance, along with safety.”

The post eVTOL industry prepares to make best first impression on public appeared first on Vertical Mag.

“We’re aggressively growing on the world stage — it’s not something that Eagle ever historically did, but our global reach into emerging markets is the most appetizing for us at this time,” Tristan Beddoe, vice president of sales and marketing at Eagle, told Vertical during a recent visit to the company’s Calgary, Alberta, headquarters.

Along with aircraft leasing, the company specializes in sales, engineering, completions, upgrades, parts and components solutions, fleet management, and maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) — covering “pretty much anything between the operator and the OEM,” Beddoe said.

“It’s amazing how many people we take through the facility, and they say at the end of the tour, ‘We had no idea you guys did all that,’ ” said Wes Semeniuk, director of leasing, large accounts and customer support at Eagle, who focuses on growing the company’s lease fleet.

While Mel and his son Mike O’Reilly very much remain a fabric of the family-owned company (Mike still serves as its CEO), Eagle has been busy branching out with a global team of experts in recent years.

Along with its headquarters in Calgary, Eagle previously operated a subsidiary in Australia, (which has since been divested), and continues to run its Santiago, Chile, facility to service the South American market. Through its affiliate Ozark Aeroworks, the company has also developed a reputation for itself in the U.S. and recently acquired the T53 turboshaft engine product line from Honeywell Aerospace.

“Mel and Mike O’Reilly have created what Eagle is today,” said Jason Diniz, president of Eagle since September 2021. “Both have built this gem of a business that spans the whole spectrum of helicopter products and services. What they’ve done in the last 48 years has been tremendous.”

To help Eagle reach new global markets, Diniz is focused on identifying untapped opportunities for the company.

Introducing the Eagle Single

Eagle has long been known as a specialist with Bell medium utility helicopters, operating the second-oldest Bell customer service facility (CSF) in the world.

In 2010, the company introduced its Eagle Single — a single-engine version of the Bell 212 powered by the T53 turboshaft engine. The aircraft offers operators a 212 with reduced weight, increased payload capacity, aftermarket accessories, and lower operating costs. Already certified to fly in Canada, the U.S., Australia, Chile, Peru, Indonesia, and most recently Japan, the Eagle Single continues to expand into new markets.

In collaboration with K-R Aircraft Inc. and Akagi Helicopters Co. Ltd., Eagle announced in December 2022 the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau’s approval of the supplemental type certificate (STC) to convert a Bell 212 to an Eagle Single, allowing the aircraft to carry out missions in Japan.

The Eagle 407HP — the company’s other conversion — is powered by the Honeywell HTS900 engine. The aircraft is designed for improved performance in hot and high missions, including law enforcement, forest management, firefighting, and helicopter emergency medical services. The airframe upgrade is certified in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Chile, Indonesia, Australia, China, and Papua New Guinea.

Today, 16 Eagle Singles and 41 407HPs are carrying out missions around the world. The company celebrated its most recent completion and delivery of an Eagle Single to Nic Sacco, CEO of Savage Aviation, during HAI Heli-Expo 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. Based out of Las Vegas, Savage Aviation will use its newly acquired Eagle Single to offer bespoke skydiving experiences and unique flight opportunities to its customers.

“We are actively engaged with our engineering group to modernize the Eagle Single, and we have developed an approved STC to include a semi-glass cockpit with a complete Garmin suite of electronics,” Beddoe said.

He called the upgrade a “sleek modernization” for the Bell medium helicopter, with a terrain awareness and warning system (TAWS), a synthetic vision system, night vision capabilities and more — all designed and certified in-house.

“We have a number of different clients globally who are interested in the aircraft, given the latest modernization with the G500,” Beddoe said. “That complete cockpit is gaining a lot of traction.”

While the Eagle Single and 407HP are big checks on Eagle’s product development box, the Bell platform is just one facet of what the company specializes in today. 

Recognizing an opportunity to diversify into new platforms, Eagle now covers Airbus, Sikorsky and Leonardo aircraft, specifically gaining a strong reputation for its MRO support on the Sikorsky S-76 and Leonardo AW139.

“We analyze the market on a regular basis, and a combination of that data, along with our connections in the market, help us plot out where we want to be in the future,” Diniz said. “By doing that actively, we saw trends in the market on both the S-76 and AW139.”

Eagle acknowledges it took two different approaches to the two very different models — “one on a segment that had almost fallen off the face of the earth, and the other that is constantly growing,” Diniz said.

Eagle saw an opportunity to revive the S-76 platform, which had experienced a downturn in the oil-and-gas market. Investing heavily in inventories for the model, the company now offers a full turnkey solution for the S-76, which Diniz calls “unbeatable in the market today.”

“On the AW139, that platform has always grown and continues to grow,” he said. “It’s a tremendous product, and we felt there’s space for Eagle to participate, especially with our core focus on product support with parts.”

As a fully authorized approved maintenance organization (AMO) under Transport Canada and recognized by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) through bilateral agreements, Eagle is a Bell customer service facility, authorized Sikorsky support center and Leonardo recognized maintenance center. The company is also an approved contractor with the Canadian Department of National Defence.

DAO Certification

Eagle operates its own design approval organization (DAO), allowing the company to design, validate and obtain STCs for platforms within the part 27 and 29 space — a particular point of pride for the Eagle team.

“Not a lot of organizations today, whether it’s your MRO facilities or leasing facilities, have an engineering department that has a DAO certification,” Diniz said.

Eagle currently maintains more than 70 STCs with more than 150 approvals in airworthiness jurisdictions around the world, including Europe, Canada, the U.S., Japan and others.

The company continues to use its growing capabilities to carry out completions on a number of helicopter types for various missions.

“The reason why completions continue to be attractive to us is because it really brings in a different level of skill capabilities and a one-stop shop solution to customers,” Diniz said. “It also demands a very strong understanding from an engineering perspective that differentiates Eagle.”

Earning itself a reputation in North America, South America, Australia and beyond, Eagle has skillfully invested and divested its business lines to take advantage of market opportunities.

Over the years, the company has sold its subsidiaries, DART Aerospace, Eagle Audio and Eagle Australasia, to focus its attention on building its inventories. Meanwhile, it has expanded globally, finding new customers — and hopes to continue to do so through the recent acquisition of the T53 turboshaft engine through Ozark Aeroworks in Springfield, Missouri.

As an FAA part 145 certified repair station, Ozark is Eagle’s T53 engine MRO facility. Eagle had officially moved its engine shop to Ozark in 2014. 

Acquiring the T53 type certification opened the door to a multitude of customers around the world in commercial and military applications.

“What we do with the T53 now is interesting because we are able to take that engine, optimize the supply chain, and make the engine platform a lot more cost effective,” Diniz said. “That intrinsically makes the helicopter platform a lot more economical.”

With an eye on future growth, Eagle has invested millions of dollars into its inventories to ensure parts availability, offering new and overhauled parts, exchanges and rotables on Bell, Sikorsky, Leonardo and Airbus platforms.

“Our newest business line — Eagle Copters Part and Components Solutions (EPCS) — is our part out division that has purchased assets and done the complete part out to support aircraft operating worldwide,” Beddoe said.

Launched in 2021, EPCS was established in response to what Eagle saw as a new opportunity to address the supply chain shortage when it comes to Bell mediums, the Sikorsky S-76 and the Leonardo AW139. In particular, Eagle has invested heavily in the S-76 platform, tearing down aged helicopters and supplying the market with hard-to-find Sikorsky parts and components.

“[EPCS is] helping the supply chain a lot. We’re getting a lot of calls for parts that you just can’t get from Leonardo or Sikorsky,” Beddoe said. “So that’s a big part of our business right now, is parts and components.”

The subsidiary supports Eagle’s lease business and component support program by supplying the market with parts and components that are in high demand in the medium market segment.

“Our spares pool is significant,” Beddoe said. “Our assets vary from the S-76 through the Bell products. We carry a significant amount of main rotor transmissions, gearboxes, as well as main rotor hubs and engines for all the platforms. At a drop of a dime, we could send gearboxes across the world to support our clients.”

A Unique Lease Offering

Today, as Eagle continues to grow its product and service offering, the company remains focused on strengthening the business line that started it all.

“Our customized lease offering is quite unique in the market,” Diniz said. “Where we differentiate ourselves on leasing is we don’t just provide the aircraft, Eagle backstops the asset with a product support plan that is unique for that customer.”

When Eagle receives a call from a customer, its support team is dedicated to responding within 24 hours with solutions that help get the aircraft operational and prevent aircraft on ground (AOG) situations. It’s a service the company now also offers to third-party operators.

Eagle’s complete component support program includes technical experts in structures, avionics and maintenance, turnkey solutions for parts and components, logistics, and overall fleet management.

“[It’s] very much the same opportunity that we offer to our lease customers in the sense that they’re paying an hourly rate for component services,” Beddoe said. “We’ve expanded this offering to include third-party aircraft, and we’ll actively engage with operators globally to onboard people to our program.”

Lease customers also benefit from Eagle’s full suite of expertise, including its engineering and completion services. They can turn to Eagle to get a helicopter that’s mission ready, fitted with customized mission-specific equipment.

Semeniuk said that since 2017, Eagle has “really established relationships with our operators in the United States, and now we’re taking it to the next level and trying to market machines for lease over in India and around the world.”

Eagle’s lease fleet has now surpassed over 70 aircraft around the world. Its most recent expansion has been into the Leonardo and Sikorsky platforms.

The company had not historically held those assets in its lease portfolio, however, “the market has showed strong demand for these types,” Beddoe said. “We are actively seeking aircraft and deploying them into new markets, as well as traditional markets that these aircraft have been operating in.”

Under the leadership of Diniz, Eagle is working to expand into new market segments around the world, keeping a close eye on the Middle East, Africa and India.

“We are determined to ensure we meet customers’ needs around the world,” Diniz said. “I think it’s a matter of time before Eagle spreads its wings even further across all its offerings. We’ve got quite a few plans in the works today.”

The post Eagle Copters spreads its wings appeared first on Vertical Mag.

Around them, the jagged rocks of the Icelandic fjords were battered by gusts of over 50 knots, and enveloped in the thick, freezing cold cloud, characteristic of the North Atlantic winter. With their helicopter low on fuel, and a critically ill patient waiting just five kilometers (three miles) away, they would have to somehow navigate their way into the lethal mix of rock, rain, and furious tailwinds. Or they would have to leave.

“The main challenge is basically the weather. It changes rapidly and it’s very unforgiving.” Sigurður Heiðar Wiium is the chief pilot of the Icelandic Coast Guard and goes by “Siggi” for those not gifted enough to speak Icelandic. While the principal task of the Coast Guard is maritime law enforcement and surveillance, rescue missions and aviation have played an important part in its history, he explained.

“The Icelandic Coast Guard is approximately 100 years old, having started with a rescue vessel,” he said. “Over the years, further vessels were added and then the first aircraft arrived in the ‘50s.”

The aviation department began with a PBY-6A Catalina flying boat in 1955, but soon gravitated to helicopters, first with a variety of Bell 47s and Sikorsky S-62s and S-76s, and then by 2007, with a more consolidated mix of AS365 Dauphin IIs and Eurocopter AS332L1 Pumas, with a Bombardier DHC-8-Q314 fixed-wing patrol aircraft in support.

In 2019, the Coast Guard decided to lease two Airbus Helicopters H225s, and today, their fleet now comprises solely of three H225s. The new aircraft are named Gná, Eir and Gró after figures from Norse mythology with powers ranging from healing the gods to riding a flying horse. While the helicopters themselves have proven more temporal, they have nevertheless impressed the crews.

“It’s proven quite a big step with a lot of benefits in performance,” said Björn Brekkan Björnsson, a helicopter captain and the head of training. He explained that some of the previous aircraft had struggled to cope with the severe turbulence that Iceland can produce.

“Flying up at 10,000 feet [3,050 meters] in mountain waves and icing, descending at 500 ft. [152 m] per minute at max power is not a nice place to be,” he said. “We often have to cross mountains up to 7,000 ft. [2,134 m] in icing and poor weather, and the H225 has proven reliable in these conditions.”

The heavier airframe has also “reduced the workload quite a lot,” Björn said. “It has more inertia, so the wind and turbulence doesn’t affect it as much, and the stability of the autopilot has brought a dramatic change to our operations.”

Equally important, the H225 has demonstrated a benefit vital to the Icelandic environment — fuel consumption. The country is 305 mi (490 km) north to south, and 185 mi (300 km) east to west. “We have an island that is 103,000 square kilometers [39,000 square miles], an exclusive economic area that is 750,000 sq. km [290,000 sq. mi], and a rescue area that is 1.9 million sq. km [733,000 sq. mi],” Björn said.

When the Coast Guard acquired the H225, there was a plan to deploy the aircraft around the island to different bases on a rotational basis. The lack of infrastructure ultimately meant that all three are based in the capital, Reykjavik, on the southwest coast.

Crews have quickly learned that having the largest aircraft in the country comes with a correspondingly large workload. As well as offshore tasks, there are plenty of jobs for helicopters inland — from fighting brush and forest fires in the summer months, to sling-loading critical infrastructure into remote sites, or even ferrying scientists across the country to study its unique environment.

“On patrol flights, we are looking for illegal fishing or ships fishing in places they’re not supposed to be,” Björn said. “But it depends on the time of the year. We are constantly juggling back and forth. I enjoy the complications of the different operations.”

Up in the air

While it might be enjoyable, Björn’s role as head of training makes him responsible for ensuring that crews are up to any task that might be demanded of them.

“It takes a lot of time to train someone to be competent and confident in what they are doing,” he noted. “It takes three to four years for a pilot to really get into the system, and it’s the same with the hoist operators — hoisting in mountains, over water, from ships and in different weather.”

Scheduling such a variety of training would be challenging enough, but with SAR by far the most common task, the reactive nature of the job can easily sabotage the best laid plans.

“We have a lot of different tasks that we need to train, but if we have an emergency mission, the training flights get rescheduled,” Björn said. “So, the schedule is never going to be correct. We end up having to replan all the time. When I start my shift on a Wednesday, I don’t have a clue what will actually happen.”

Forecasting may be difficult, but some responses are almost a certainty. Iceland’s population swells during the summer as millions of tourists arrive to enjoy the breathtaking beauty of the landscape. Inevitably, a few find themselves victims to the ruthless climate. As the country’s popularity increases, so has the workload of the Icelandic Coast Guard.

“The tasking is becoming more frequent inland,” Björn explained. “It used to be about 70% offshore, but this is changing due to more tourists inland.”

Consequently, despite the nominal law enforcement focus and broad capabilities, the composition of the Icelandic Coast Guard helicopter crews is tailored for one thing — SAR. “The helicopters are crewed pretty much always for search-and-rescue,” Siggi said.

A SAR crew consists of two pilots, a navigator/rescue specialist, and a technician/hoist operator. Doctors from a local hospital will join the crew to provide medical expertise. “The doctor is not a technical crew member, but we treat them as part of the crew,” Siggi said. “They do HUET [helicopter underwater escape training] and participate in CRM [crew resource management] and hoist training, for both inland and offshore hoisting.”

To supplement that medical expertise, rescue specialists and hoist operators also receive medical training. “We are all EMT basic trained,” said Hrannar Sigurdsson, a mechanic and hoist operator who started his career as a fixed-wing aviation technician and joined the Coast Guard in 2007. He completed his training as a hoist operator in 2010 and is one of 16 mechanics — eight of whom are hoist operators. All have other duties, such as operations planning or technical maintenance roles. Technicians not on flying duties can expect to work a line maintenance shift for a week, followed by a week off and two weeks in heavy maintenance.

When flying as part of a crew, they are depended upon to provide the technical expertise necessary to keep the aircraft functioning when support could be many hours away.

“Sometimes we are flying in the country, and you have to solve whatever problems the aircraft brings to you,” Hrannar said.

It’s clearly a job that comes with plenty of responsibility, but perhaps none more so than during a hoist operation.  “We are basically the pilot’s eyes during the hoist,” he said. “We are sitting in the door, and we guide the pilot in the right position.”

While his modest manner may make this sound as simple as parking a truck, Hrannar could be working at night, in dreadful weather conditions, and over a heaving sea, with a person’s life hanging in the balance and another one hanging on a hoist cable just 3/16 inches thick. It is impossible to overstate the importance of teamwork and communication between the hoist operator and the pilot under such circumstances.

Vision by night

Brynhildur Ásta Bjartmarz is one such pilot, and it is this kind of environment that she dreamed of working in from the very start of her career. “I knew the Coast Guard was where I wanted to end up,” she said. “My stepfather was a Coast Guard pilot. I think that’s the only reason I ever thought about being a pilot myself.”

Having trained initially on fixed-wing aircraft, Brynhildur qualified on helicopters in the U.S. and gained her instrument rating in Sweden. Once accepted into the Icelandic Coast Guard soon after her qualification, she gained her first type rating on the AS332, with line training following immediately afterward.

“Once you’ve finished your line training, you are kind of in the thick of it as you never know what missions you will be called up for,” she explained. “You hold off sling-loading and firefighting, but otherwise, you start doing everything.”

Most of the flying represented a steady continuation of skills she had applied on smaller aircraft, but there was one aspect which was completely new — night vision goggles (NVGs). “It’s a big leap. I started in April and had the summer to get used to things, but I remember in the winter going into NVGs. That was a big difference,” she said.

Björn has flown with the Coast Guard long enough to remember SAR operations before NVGs, and credits them with revolutionizing the operation. “NVGs are an absolute game-changer,” he said. “We implemented them in ‘02 after a couple of close calls and increased our night capability by 90%, both in terms of safety and operational capability.”

The H225s have also come with TrakkaBeam searchlights and WESCAM thermal imaging cameras, which have shone in the Coast Guard’s SAR role, helping detect the heat of a survivor against the cold sea — technology literally making the difference between life and death.

However, the god-like powers of all this technology do not come with immortality. Iceland, despite its stunning beauty, has little mercy for those who push the boundaries too far. There are real risks and balancing them is arguably the most important skill that H225 crews possess. “You know what you’re getting into,” said Brynhildur. “You kind of have to know what you can do and what your aircraft can do and trust your crew. That’s why we train.”

That trust, knowledge and confidence proved vital in November 2022, when an Icelandic Coast Guard crew was forced to decide between facing the very worst of the North Atlantic weather or leaving a casualty a few miles away. Flying into a fjord with a 50-knot tailwind would have left them no way out. So, in almost zero visibility, with the hoist operator giving directions, they put the aircraft’s nose into the wind and reversed the whole way. With the casualty on board, they could then safely exit the fjord into wind. It took 20 minutes.

It wasn’t something that they had ever trained to do, but it took tremendous trust and skill to execute. According to the doctor who treated the casualty, the maneuver almost certainly saved a life.

Of the crews that Vertical Valor spoke to, all struggled to recall a notable experience. “Combine flying a great aircraft together with assisting people in dire need of help, all year round,” Siggi said matter-of-factly. “Adding those together provides a lot of enjoyable experiences.”

It’s tempting to think of this as a kind of national resilience that comes from living on an island hundreds of miles from the nearest neighbor, where boiling water comes out of the frozen ground. But it seems more likely that there are so many similar experiences that for the crews who train together and trust each other, such missions just become normal.

“I don’t know which ones to pick out,” Brynhildur mused as though contemplating where she had left her keys. “One time we rescued seven men from a burning ship, but there’s a lot of things you remember.”

The post Riding the Valkyries appeared first on Vertical Mag.

“Our communities — rural and remote — are very invested in what we do,” Andrea Robertson, president and CEO of STARS, told Vertical Valor. She has been at the helm since 2012. “When I’m asked who owns STARS, I say the communities of Western Canada. We are a community service — built by the community for the community. We’re very restricted to critical care, so we fly for life and limb.”

A physician-driven not-for-profit helicopter air ambulance organization, STARS was founded by Dr. Greg Powell in 1985 on a straightforward premise — “one life lost is one too many,” Robertson said.

STARS serves a population scattered across a massive geographical region. On any given mission, a crew could be flying through unpredictable environments — from landing on a side of a mountain, to flying through challenging winter conditions.

“Being a pilot here can be very challenging, but also very rewarding,” said Jason Arthur, director of flight operations and a line pilot. “Our area of operation is so vast. We might be doing a mission up toward Jasper or all the way down to Lethbridge, and each can present very different weather conditions, which are quite challenging at times.”

Over the last 38 years, STARS has used several types of helicopters to fly its crews and patients, initially starting with a fleet of MBB/Kawasaki BK117s, which Robertson refers to as “a workhorse for the organization.”

“But it’s a legacy aircraft now, and for us to be 24/7 available, getting those parts on a legacy aircraft is pretty tough,” she said.

So, in 2018, STARS began a fleet renewal program. After a three-year evaluation to find the best aircraft for the job, the organization landed on the H145 (having also considered the Leonardo AW139). The renewal was a major undertaking and a significant capital investment for the not-for-profit organization. With each aircraft costing more than $15 million, “we needed to be creative,” Robertson said.

STARS’ success over the last 38 years has been based on community partnerships and donations from individuals, organizations, businesses, event partners, and governments.

“I’m amazed by their trust, and we see it as a great privilege,” Robertson said. “That’s why we always have to improve and make sure that we are available for them, and so the investment in the new aircraft fleet was a big part of that.”

STARS received funding for five helicopters from the federal government and two aircraft from the governments of the three provinces in which it operates. The community in which STARS serves donated funds for the remainder of the fleet.

New fleet, same lifesaving missions

The H145 provides the range and power for STARS to quickly get to patients, and can handle the harsh environments that Western Canada can present. As the latest member of Airbus’s light twin-engine helicopter family, the H145 D3 adds a new five-bladed rotor system. This increases the useful load of the helicopter by 330 pounds (150 kilograms), simplifies maintenance operations, and improves ride comfort for passengers and crew.

Powered by two Safran Arriel 2E engines with full authority digital engine control (FADEC), the H145 features Airbus’s own Helionix digital avionics suite, increasing safety and reducing pilot workload. Skytrac satcom connectivity and avionics systems allow STARS Emergency Link Center (ELC) to track its fleet of helicopters more efficiently.

“Dispatching is now a digital environment, and so technology is a big piece for us,” said John Griffiths, director of the ELC. “We had a mission the other day where the Grande Prairie base flew into the Yukon, which is almost unheard of. They were closer to Alaska than Grande Prairie, and so Skytrac is the backbone of keeping track of the aircraft, keeping communication with the aircraft, and getting good situational awareness.”

With an endurance of more than 3.5 hours, the H145 has a range of 351 nautical miles at a cruise speed of 140 knots. The aircraft also touts low external noise levels, suitable for operations around hospitals and urban areas, and a compact body with a protected Fenestron tail rotor system, allowing for safe landing in confined areas near the scene of an emergency.

When he spoke to Vertical Valor, Arthur had just returned from his third back-to-back mission for the day. “Thanks to the level of automation that comes with the H145, it helps greatly when it comes to crew fatigue,” he said. “With the BK117, it would have been far more fatiguing for the entire crew, but with the H145, the automation that comes with the four-axis autopilot makes it less draining on the crew.”

Arthur said the H145 has enough power to fly on a single engine in almost every given flight regime, “which adds a huge safety factor for our mission profiles.”

Thanks to the H145, STARS set a record for its farthest mission last fall. Captain Mike Allard, co-captain Mark Vansickle, flight paramedic Brent McDonald, and flight nurse David Vultaggio from the Grande Prairie, Alberta, base traveled a 952-nautical-mile (1,763-kilometer) return trip to Chee House, British Columbia, to care for a patient — the same distance as flying from Calgary, Alberta, to Los Angeles, California. The mission lasted eight hours and 12 minutes.

Building on past experiences

For the STARS air medical crew, the back of the helicopter is their intensive care unit, and how the aircraft is completed is of crucial importance.

“When I reach for a piece of equipment that I need to help my patient, I know exactly where to reach for it,” said flight paramedic Tara Oliver, who was part of the STARS team that decided on the final medical configuration of the new fleet.

The H145 offers the blend of a compact aircraft with equipment close at hand, but also the space needed for the crew to provide critical care, Oliver said. Completed by Airbus Canada in Fort Erie, Ontario, the H145s are configured with Aerolite’s lightweight interior solution purpose-designed for air medical missions. Aerolite medical interiors are “clip-in, clip-out,” allowing STARS to bring in different equipment in the future, “which is the whole design of this aircraft — to make sure that we stay with the times,” Robertson said. “This is a generational investment for us, for our communities, and we want this aircraft around for a long time.”

The aircraft is fitted with a non-slip floor with a raised lip, while a single-person, no-lift stretcher allows crews to safely load and unload patients even while they’re hooked to medical equipment. Crews can perform blood work analysis using the onboard iStat machine blood gas analyzer, and, if required, every aircraft carries two units of O-negative blood to perform blood transfusions using IV infusion pumps.

Along with an onboard ultrasound machine, the aircraft also has a C-MAC video laryngoscope for medical crews to see right down to the vocal cords when placing a breathing tube in a patient.

One H145 aircraft in STARS’ fleet is equipped with inflight Wi-Fi and remote monitoring IOT (internet of things) medical devices, allowing remote physicians to come into the back of the aircraft virtually. This places physicians on the scene to support crews on complex cases. “We want to be early adopters of proven medical or aviation technologies,” said Kenny Doleac, chief strategy and development officer at STARS.

With innovation always top of mind, STARS is currently working on remote weather stations. Given the vast and remote areas in which the organization regularly operates, weather reporting can be a challenge, especially in the winter months.

“When we looked at our data, one of the biggest reasons that we decline or are unable to serve missions is because of poor weather,” Doleac said. And while there are times when the weather actually might be poor, he said sometimes the real issue is the lack of accurate weather reporting.

“We’re experimenting with a product that was developed by the U.S. military for use in Afghanistan for rugged remote weather stations that we could potentially locate out there and have a little bit more access to real-time weather data,” he said. 

In-house capabilities

STARS received the last of its 10 H145s in October 2022. Five of them are the latest D3 models, making STARS the first North American aviation organization flying the five-bladed aircraft. The other five are four-bladed D2s that will be converted to D3s by STARS’ own team of aircraft maintenance engineers (AMEs). Coinciding with an 800-hour inspection, the conversion process can take up to four months to complete. The first conversion was just completed at its base in Edmonton, Alberta.

“We have all the tooling that we need, and we have assistance from Airbus, so that’s a huge benefit,” said Rob Wiese, an AME at STARS. The team also carries out heavy maintenance and line maintenance in-house. “We use local vendors and avionics companies to help with larger inspections and modifications, but we basically do it all here.”

Each of STARS’ H145s will fly an average of 650 hours a year. Wiese said that the introduction of the H145 has gone relatively well, but it has not been without its challenges.

“With the older BK117, it was easier in some ways to troubleshoot issues because it doesn’t have the same level of integration that the H145 has,” he said. “So, it has just been a matter of adapting to the new technologies that come with the H145.”

According to Wiese, the biggest challenge on the maintenance side has been familiarization with the H145. “The manuals, maintenance schedule, tooling, procedures, and troubleshooting — all of it together as a package, it can be a lot,” he said. “As challenging as it is, it’s equally exciting because you’re doing something new every day.”

Oftentimes when STARS completes a mission, the crews are not aware of what the outcome is for the patient. But from time to time, some of those patients turn up at STARS’ doorstep, interested in meeting the crew that helped save their lives.

“That is a pretty awesome day,” Robertson said. “To see someone who’s been in the worst accident or worst medical crisis of their lives walk through the door is pretty satisfying.”

STARS has a special name for the patients it serves. Referred to as VIPs — or “very important patients” — the air medical organization has tallied a large number in its lifetime. These VIPs also become an important part of STARS’ fundraising.

“You’ll see us do a big gala, and the center of the whole gala is someone telling the story of what happened to them, and how important it is for the village of health care to come together to provide care,” Robertson said. “We’re just one piece, but we happen to be a pretty important piece.”

A second chance at life

In the mountains of Alberta, Hank Postma and his wife made a date on the ski hills. The two had planned to spend the day at the Nakiska Ski Resort, taking in the picturesque view of Kananaskis Country.

The trip started out normally, with Postma making his runs down the hill, while his wife remained at the bottom. Postma sent his wife a picture of himself in the glade before making plans to meet for lunch. But soon after starting his next run, Postma realized something was wrong.

“I wasn’t feeling right. I felt I had to get to the bottom,” Postma said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get to the bottom, and at that point, I couldn’t do anything — I was helpless.”

The then 56-year-old had suffered a heart attack.

“I basically kicked off my skis, and I remember looking at the clock and it was 11:30 a.m. Then I went down to the ground,” he said.

Three people came to his aid, giving him aspirin to chew on. The Nakiska ski patrol was the next to arrive on scene and provided him with oxygen — and then STARS was the next call. Two hours after experiencing his heart attack, Postma was in a hospital room recovering with his family. Without STARS, he acknowledged his heart attack would have been fatal.

“The chain of survival that was in place — from the first responders, to the ski patrol, to the paramedics, and the hand-off to STARS to get me to where I needed to be was amazing,” Postma said. “And [the treatment in] that ‘golden hour’ served me well, because now I’m on my second life. I have a second chance, and I can do a lot of things that I’ve always been able to do.”

After his recovery, Postma wanted to learn more about the organization and visit the STARS hangar to meet the crew that helped save his life.

“It was very nice to share my survival story and show them that I survived,” he said. “It meant a lot to not only the crew that was with me that day, but also the STARS organization.”

By sharing his story as a STARS VIP, Postma hopes to raise awareness about this lifesaving program, which he calls a “vital service, especially for the people that need immediate delivery to the hospital.”

“I’ll always be an advocate for this great organization that gives people second chances at life. They save souls and they save people,” Postma said. 

STARS VIPS are given a ring by the organization, and for Postma, it’s a constant reminder of the day when everything fell into place and Postma got to see another day. “The ring of life,” he refers to it as, “it’s been with me forever, and it’ll stay with me forever.”

The ‘red angel’ in the sky

What started as a weekend camping trip with friends to celebrate a high school graduation quickly turned into tragedy for Lorinda Bye.

“We were camping in rural Alberta in Rocky Mountain House, and my sister and I went to sleep and woke up to a raging storm outside our tent,” Bye said.

The violent windstorm turned near-fatal when a tree fell on the sisters, breaking Bye’s back. In that split second, the teenager became paralyzed. “After I was rescued, it was clear that I was going downhill quite rapidly, and I needed to get to an urgent care center very quickly,” she said “So that’s when the rural hospital I was at decided to call STARS.”

She refers to STARS as the “red angel in the sky.” Time was of the essence, and when STARS was called to the rescue “things [were] going downhill quite fast,” she said. “If it wasn’t for STARS, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

Motivated to meet the crew that helped save her life that night, Bye made a trip to the STARS hangar in Edmonton, Alberta. “It was a very special moment to meet and thank them in person and tell them all that I’ve been able to do because they saved my life that night,” she said.

For Bye, being a STARS VIP is a surreal title because “you never picture that you’re going to be needing STARS. But now that it’s happened to me, I just want to make sure that if anyone else is in a situation like I was in, that they have the best chance of survival — and the way that you can keep that chance of survival high is if you keep STARS in the sky.”

That’s why Bye continues to encourage donations, raise awareness, and share her story with others — to demonstrate the crucial lifesaving role that STARS plays. “They are a very valuable organization to have in the community, especially when you’re in rural areas and ambulances can’t get to you quite as fast,” she said. “It’s just reassuring to know that there’s a helicopter that can get to you when you need it.”

The post STARS in the Sky appeared first on Vertical Mag.

It’s a quiet fall morning in the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) at 8 Wing Trenton, Ontario, one of three across Canada — the others are in Victoria, British Columbia, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, along with two marine-focused stations in Quebec City and St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Collectively, the centers provide a 24/7 response to search-and-rescue (SAR) calls from an area that extends hundreds of nautical miles into the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and from the Canada-U.S. border up to the North Pole. The central Canadian search region of JRCC Trenton is the largest — more than 10 million square kilometers (3.9 million square miles) — that includes the Great Lakes, Hudson’s Bay, and the Arctic Ocean.

The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) is responsible primarily for SAR from the air, but the JRCCs also coordinate maritime responses. Working alongside marine coordinators from the Canadian Coast Guard, air force SAR mission coordinators (SMC) like Spaleta will determine which assets to deploy based on the nature of the call. And those calls can come from anywhere: an activated location beacon on a plane, boat or person, an air traffic controller when a plane is overdue, a spouse when a partner has failed to return from an afternoon of flying, a bystander on the shoreline witnessing a vessel in distress, or a provincial police force requesting SAR support in a difficult-to-reach area.

Mission coordinators and assistants will triage the calls, confirming an incident, determining whether the JRCC or local authorities are best positioned to respond, defining a search area that will narrow as more information is gathered, and assigning an air and/or marine response and tasking assets.

“I am kind of like the 911 operator, but also the investigator and the dispatcher,” Spaleta explained.

In a typical year, JRCC Trenton will receive around 4,000 calls, but just like the calls themselves, few years are considered typical — calls exceeded 4,700 in 2021. In the summer months, as hikers head out on the trails of provincial parks, boaters cruise the Great Lakes, and private pilots take to the skies, the center can have as many as 50 cases on the go at once, and 10 or more that require further investigation — identifying vessels or aircraft ownership and checking their likely location. Most often, the calls are a false alarm, such as a float plane operator who has failed to turn off an emergency locator transmitter (ELT). Still, every call must be investigated.

“When it gets hopping, this is a very active rescue center,” Spaleta said, and it requires multiple assistants working with air and marine coordinators to respond and attempt to resolve each call.

Most calls that require RCAF assistance can be managed by scheduled SAR standby crews of pilots, flight engineers, air combat systems officers, loadmasters, and SAR technicians. They are on two-hours notice to move but CC-130H Hercules and CH-146 Griffons or CH-149 Cormorants are frequently airborne when a mission comes in and can be re-tasked immediately.

(RCAF SAR crews were previously on 30-minute standby, 40 hours a week, but that requirement was suspended temporarily during the COVID-19 pandemic due to “staffing issues and COVID protocols,” explained Maj. Marc Crivicich, the officer in charge of JRCC Trenton. The average response time has been around 70 minutes. “RCAF SAR is still achieving our mission on behalf of Canadians day in and day out.”)

However, if the incident involves a missing or crashed aircraft with more casualties than that normal standby crew can manage, it might be declared a “MAJAID.” And a major air disaster, depending on the location and scale, will trigger a Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) contingency plan called Soteria, named for the Greek goddess of safety, salvation and preservation from harm.

Once the JRCC investigation confirms a report of an overdue aircraft from air traffic control or the activation of an ELT beacon from the Canadian Mission Control Centre (CMCC), one floor above, the likelihood of a crash increases and things start to spool up quickly. SMCs will isolate the case and make it their sole focus, allowing others to manage new calls.

The rescue center will launch the first aircraft, but might have limited information about the severity of the situation and those injured “until the SAR techs have inserted,” Crivicich said. “Concurrently, the RCAF is gearing up the MAJAID response and standing up the various units and resources to respond in accordance with CONPLAN Soteria.”

First response

On a cool morning in early November, with the temperature hovering around zero degrees Celsius (32o F), members of 8 Wing Trenton trained for such a scenario. The call — simulated — of the possible crash of a small plane with nine people on board was received by a JRCC mission controller the night before. The wooded terrain was inaccessible to vehicles and a parachute drop would be required.

The SMC notified 424 Transport and Rescue Squadron and the operations officer of the Canadian Army Advanced Warfare Centre (CAAWC), a training center for jungle warfare, Arctic and complex terrain that retains a 12-person airborne support group (ASG) on 12 hours notice to report. The alert was also provided to 436 Transport Squadron, which operates a fleet of CC-130J Hercules, and the Combat Aerial Delivery Support (CADS) Section, which maintains specialized containers with emergency equipment.

By 6 a.m., aircrews, SAR technicians and the ASG team were on the ramp as the H- and J-model Hercules began warming up and the CH-146 Griffon helicopter crew arrived to prepare for multiple casualty extractions.

Five SAR techs parachuted onto the scene shortly after 9 a.m., with only one minor mishap when a tech was blown offline and landed in the trees. They found the broken fuselage of a small plane on an awkward incline and nine casualties, with injuries ranging from major bleeds to head injuries, an abdominal evisceration, and severe neck lacerations. All were coded red, but all were alive.

“We really put a focus on the fact that this is a traumatic scene. It might look different every time you do it,” explained Body Thompson, a former CAF med tech and now a civilian paramedic helping with 424 Squadron training. Thompson prepared the “casualties” with realistic looking makeup and prosthetics and advised on how to simulate symptoms.

While Master Cpl. Dominic Allard, the on-scene commander (OSC), pronounced “oscar,” took up an oversight position to establish a collection point for the casualties and serve as the communications link between the SAR techs on the ground and the circling Hercules, the JRCC, and the inbound helicopter, Master Cpl. David Campeau, the medical boss, coordinated the initial casualty assessment and began prioritizing patients for evacuation.

Allard, serving for the first time in the OSC role, admitted it was difficult not to triage the injured. “You feel like you want to get more involved,” he said, as cries of pain echoed around him.

424 Squadron puts an emphasis on plane crashes because it’s a realistic scenario in their area of responsibility, Thompson explained. “We do this at this time of year because we want to focus on hypothermia. Mass casualties are way different than treating an individual patient. You can’t spend as much time on one because you need to focus on all. So, we really focus on triage, hypothermia management and bleed management, and then extraction. Once [the casualties] get moved into the tents, then you can start treating them.”

Supporting drop

SAR techs typically jump with enough supplies, including small tents and basic gear, to sustain themselves and two to three patients for about 24 to 48 hours. A crashed jet plane or even a small passenger aircraft requires far more lifesaving support. The Army’s ASG parachutes with a much larger supply of tents, generators, heaters, food, water, and clothing to support as many as 320 passengers for about 72 hours. The eight MAJAID kits are comprised of 32 boxes that would require two Hercules to transport and drop, but they can be scaled to the scope of a particular emergency.

“The kits are operational, always ready to go,” said Warrant Officer Jody Hynes, second-in-command of MAJAID at the CADS Section, which maintains and repacks the kits. “We do one kit per month, and it takes us about four days.” ASG personnel help unpack and repack the kits to become familiar with how the equipment works.

For this exercise, two training kits were accurately dropped along with an Argo all-terrain vehicle, followed by the 12 ASG jumpers. Hynes, a SAR technician by trade who now serves as an instructor, parachuted in with the SAR techs to provide drop zone control, providing the CC-130J aircrew “an actual grid and run-in so when they get on-scene they know exactly which direction they will be heading. They give me a six-minute call and a one-minute call so I can give them the wind direction and the wind speed.”

The CAAWC is responsible for over 20 training courses, so frequent exposure to the MAJAID kits and regular exercises with the SAR techs and CC-130J crews is critical for members recently assigned to the ASG, which can change about every three months, said Capt. Jean-Christophe Ouellet, CAAWC operations officer.

“It pulls from everyone in the unit,” he said. Some ASG members only completed a static line square canopy course the week before and were participating in the MAJAID scenario for the first time. “They’ll get their hands on the gear, which is important for us to help the SAR techs do their job.”

Once the Army team had the tents assembled at a casualty collection point, they began assisting the SAR techs with moving the injured to the warmer shelter where they could be treated. Within 30 minutes of stabilizing the most critical patients, the distinct whirl of the approaching CH-146 Griffon could be heard beyond the trees. As soon as the helicopter touched down in a nearby clearing, the ASG personnel began transporting the first two patients. The Griffon immediately lifted off to a notional forward operating base and a medical team — in realty, the squadron hangar — a process that would be repeated two more times.

In the event of an actual major air disaster, the Griffon and the larger CH-149 Cormorant might also have to extract the SAR and ASG team.

“That at times is often as big a job as the insertion can be,” noted Master Warrant Officer Dan Verret, the SAR leader at 424 Squadron and the exercise director.

“There are a lot of moving parts,” Campeau, the medical boss, observed. A normal response is usually two SAR techs on the ground and an aircrew commander supporting from above. Coordinating multiple agencies and multiple platforms requires “mission consideration and mission planning. That’s why this training is important to us.”

Though the training was conducted at Canadian Forces Detachment Mountain View, an airfield not far from Trenton, the intent was to simulate some of the conditions SAR techs and helicopter crews might encounter if it were a plane crash or grounded cruise ship in the High North — the nightmare scenario for which the CAF must prepare.

“Imagine an incident like [this] happening north of Cambridge Bay [on Victoria Island, Nunavut], with [multiple aircraft] arriving under uncontrolled conditions,” said Sgt. Rob Featherstone, the section warrant officer at JRCC Trenton.

Every SAR squadron aims to do MAJAID training scenario once a year, Verret said. Because 424 Squadron is co-located with the Army ASG, the MAJAID kit delivery section, and 436 Squadron, “we have the luxury … of being able to partake in each others’ exercises.”

The exercise is particularly important for new squadron members who, as part of their training, will complete a scenario that involves a group jump, mass casualties, and helicopter extraction, “but it is not as large as this,” he noted. The added attention from observers and media “adds an element of realism to it. It ramps up the stress. It’s challenging coming into an area when there are a lot of eyes watching.

“Anytime we do an exercise like this there will always be lessons learned,” Verret concluded. “We’ll never do everything perfect, but mission success here: lives were saved, and inter-unit cooperation was phenomenal. Everybody played their part.”

The post <strong>Canadian Armed Forces prepare for the worst-case scenario  </strong> appeared first on Vertical Mag.

Tucked away in a corner of Orlando Sanford International Airport in Florida, Vertical Aviation Technologies (VAT) has managed to extend the life of one helicopter model longer than most. For more than 30 years, it has been selling kits based on the Sikorsky S-52-3, a model that made its first flight in 1951. Three-quarters of a century later, the S-52 lives on as the VAT 300L Hummingbird, a four-place amateur-build helicopter that preserves the basic design and rotor system of the S-52, with a host of modern improvements.

I had been intrigued by the S-52 since 2014, when Alex Anduze, then a test pilot for Sikorsky, exhibited his fully restored model at HAI Heli-Expo in Anaheim, California. There, I learned that an S-52 had been the first helicopter to perform a documented loop, with famed Sikorsky test pilot Harold “Tommy” Thompson at the controls. Looking at Anduze’s antique, the feat seemed incredible, but Thompson’s son had the video footage to prove it.

In February of this year, I finally got a proper introduction to the S-52 and its derivative when VAT founder Brad Clark invited me out to Sanford. Anduze, who now collaborates with Clark on the 300L, gave me the kind of demo flight he provides to prospective buyers, showing off a surprisingly relevant personal aircraft that would be a hoot to have in the garage.

I also scored a few precious minutes of hover time in Anduze’s restored original, the same helicopter he flew in the recent Korean War movie Devotion. The experience underscored all of the ways in which VAT has improved on the S-52 — but also just how well Sikorsky built the aircraft to begin with.

A new use for spare parts

Clark grew up around helicopters, including S-52s. His father, Fred Clark, was a U.S. Air Force veteran who founded several commercial helicopter companies, most notably Orlando Helicopter Airways (OHA) in 1964. Fred Clark used S-52s for a variety of missions, including power line patrols, passenger transport and sightseeing flights. Ultimately, Sikorsky sold him the technical data for the model and he acquired a large inventory of surplus aircraft and spare parts.

As the years went by, he moved into remanufacturing Sikorsky S-55 and S-58 helicopters, assisted by Brad. Among other things, he invented the S-55 Heli-Camper marketed by Winnebago, a project that was never commercially successful, but which has such enduring appeal that it resurfaces periodically online. In the 1980s, OHA was awarded a U.S. Army contract to modify the S-55 to mimic the appearance, sound and radar signature of the Soviet Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter. The five-bladed rotor system engineered for that project later became the basis for the S-55QT “Whisper Jet” that Brad Clark developed in partnership with Elling Halvorson of Papillon Airways.

All this time, OHA’s inventory of S-52 parts was sitting around, gathering dust. Eventually, Fred Clark gifted them to his son. “I’m like, ‘What am I going to do with all these brand-new S-52 parts? Nobody’s operating or flying them,’ ” Brad Clark recalled. “And that’s when I decided to develop it into a kit.”

That was the beginning of VAT, which began selling helicopter kits based on the S-52 in 1991, the same year it acquired OHA’s assets and Federal Aviation Administration repair station certification. Clark was fortunate in starting out with a large supply of hard-to-make parts, including transmissions and rotor heads, allowing him to gradually ramp up his manufacturing capabilities. Today, VAT supplies every part on the aircraft, outsourcing manufacturing work to various vendors. Clark said he has now sold more than 350 kits all over the world, none of which has yet been involved in a fatal accident.

Clark has made various modifications to the S-52 design over the years: some readily apparent, others less so. The most obvious change to the original design is in the Hummingbird’s nose, which resembles the projecting nose of a Bell JetRanger rather than the smooth round face of the S-52. But Clark has also tweaked materials and manufacturing processes on parts like the clutch cam to improve durability. The cockpit is still analog but incorporates modern instruments, and there’s an electric cyclic trim, rather than the two trim knobs awkwardly mounted on the floor of the S-52. (Neither model has hydraulic flight controls.)

Clark has iterated on the Hummingbird’s engine over the years, too. The S-52 was equipped with a 245-horsepower, six-cylinder Franklin engine, but as Anduze, who has one in his aircraft, will attest, it was always underpowered. The first Hummingbird kits used a 260-hp Lycoming VO-435; when parts for those became hard to find, Clark adapted the General Motors LS7, a car engine. But he always had a preference for a certified aviation engine and migrated back to the 300-hp Lycoming IO-540. After sourcing the model through other vendors for many years, Clark is now working directly with Lycoming.

“It’s the engine the aircraft has always wanted,” said Anduze, pointing out that the S-52 was originally conceived as having a 300-hp powerplant. “And now it finally has it.”

The $100 hamburger test flight

Anduze met Clark over a decade ago at the Sun ’n Fun Aerospace Expo in Lakeland, Florida, where Clark had his own yellow Hummingbird, N52FH, on display. “I loved the concept,” Anduze recalled. “And then I started looking for an original [S-52], just because I like vintage things.” He ended up finding one in Stockton, California, and Clark was a major source of help and guidance as he restored it.

Eventually, they realized there was an opportunity to collaborate on further enhancements to the Hummingbird, leveraging Anduze’s skills and knowledge as a graduate of the National Test Pilot School. They started with a full handling qualities evaluation of the aircraft using standard techniques. “And then we said, ‘OK, where do we work? Let’s work on this section.’ And we worked on that section, and we improved the stability,” Anduze said. “And then we wanted to get a little more power, so we worked on a cold induction system and a bigger throttle body.”

Through this “iterative process,” he said, “we took what was already a really good helicopter and we just made it that much better.” That deep familiarity with the Hummingbird made Anduze the perfect instructor for my demo flight in N52FH, on a gusty but otherwise gorgeous Florida day. From VAT’s base in Sanford, we flew 20 miles (30 kilometers) north to DeLand Municipal Airport for lunch, then maneuvered in the local area before heading back. (Separately, we flew east to the Atlantic coast around New Smyrna Beach for a photo shoot.)

Upon climbing into the Hummingbird, I immediately noticed how roomy it is for a four-seat aircraft, which explains how the S-52 was able to carry two stacked stretchers for medevac missions during the Korean War. Anduze handled the engine start, which required some priming. He set the engine to idle at around 1,000 rpm, below the engagement level for the centrifugal clutch. That meant we were able to start warming up on the ramp without turning the rotor blades — a welcome safety feature. Once the oil temperature gauge was in the green, he rolled on throttle to continue the run-up procedure, with the blades fully engaging as engine rpm climbed through 2,000 (maximum rpm is 3,275).

With the run-up checks complete, Anduze ground taxied us away from the VAT hangar on the Hummingbird’s quadricycle landing gear. He also performed the takeoff, then handed the controls over to me in flight. With no hydraulics and a maximum gross weight of 2,800 pounds (1,270 kilograms), the Hummingbird feels fairly heavy on the controls, similar to an MD 500. But it was easy to trim out stick forces with the beep trim on the cyclic. Anduze said he and Clark tinkered extensively with the trim to fine-tune the control feel and beep rate.

More of a challenge for me was the manual throttle control, as it had been a long time since I had done much flying without a governor. Not surprisingly, my first impulse was to overcontrol the throttle, particularly as the main rotor system was periodically buffeted by wind gusts. But Anduze coached me out of it, pointing out that the green arc on the Hummingbird’s rotor tachometer is much wider than it is on the governed Robinson helicopters on which I had learned how to fly. Not only that, its heavy, three-bladed rotor system has more inertia than those two-bladed models, making it even more forgiving.

Although the Hummingbird lacks a governor, it does have a correlator that takes most of the throttle work out of power changes. And while I still had to consciously think about the throttle by the end of my flight, it didn’t seem like it would take more than a few hours to get comfortable with it. (Pilots of a certain age should feel free to point out that once upon a time, every helicopter pilot knew how to fly without a governor.)

Apart from the manual throttle control, the Hummingbird was easy to fly, with no real surprises. At sea level and a takeoff weight of around 2,450 pounds (1,110 kilograms), we had power to spare, and ample tail rotor authority while hovering with a 15-knot crosswind. The aircraft was maneuverable in powered flight and docile in an autorotative glide. With a never-exceed speed of 95 knots, it wasn’t very fast, but it was as comfortable as a beach cruiser.

It was while ground taxiing up to the airport restaurant in DeLand, however, that I got a real glimpse of the Hummingbird lifestyle. With wheeled landing gear and the ability to cool down the engine with the rotors stopped, the Hummingbird is about as neighborly as helicopters come. After shutting down the engine, Anduze and I pushed it a short distance into a parking spot between a two-seat experimental airplane and the restaurant’s patio, neither of which had been greatly disturbed by our rotor wash. You certainly can’t do that in a skid-equipped helicopter.

At the end of the day, back at the VAT hangar, Anduze graciously fired up his vintage S-52, just to give me some stick time in what he believes is the world’s oldest flying helicopter (it was originally built in 1953). The Franklin 6V6 engine took a few tries to start; it shook, rattled, and rolled a bit more than its descendant; and Anduze had to take his best guess at the proper position for the floor mounted trim knobs before picking the aircraft up into a hover. Yet, 70 years after it first left the factory, it hovered just fine. Sikorsky clearly knew how to build them.

The path to certification

VAT sells the standard Hummingbird kit for US$159,000 and the fuel-injected IO-540 engine for an additional $68,475. A “quick build” option featuring an assembled airframe is available for another $66,750. Both the standard and quick build kits satisfy the FAA’s so-called “51 percent rule” for amateur-built aircraft, which requires that the builder complete at least 51 percent of the tasks required to make the aircraft airworthy.

For anyone with the time and inclination to put in the sweat equity, that’s an attractive price for a four-place personal helicopter, even with the operational restrictions attached to the experimental category. But what about everyone else?

For a while, Clark was pursuing FAA certification of the Hummingbird in the primary category, which would have allowed VAT to sell already assembled aircraft to customers. That program drove some additional improvements to the helicopter, including an upgrade to a crash-resistant fuel system, as is now required by federal regulations.

However, the certification program became more burdensome than Clark had expected. Then, in 2019, he had the opportunity to acquire the original S-52 type certificate from Sikorsky. That opened the door to eventually certifying the Hummingbird as a standard category helicopter through an amended type certificate, without the limitations imposed on a primary category aircraft. So, the original certification program was abandoned.

Clark is not predicting a timeline for amending the S-52 type certificate, although he said that much of the necessary structural analysis and testing has already been completed. In the meantime, he emphasized that while the Hummingbird may be sold as a kit, it’s a certified aircraft at heart.

“I grew up in the commercial helicopter business and repair stations,” he said, explaining that he has always kept the quality of VAT’s production system in line with FAA requirements. Unlike some other homebuilt kits, he said, there are no automotive parts in the Hummingbird; everything meets a military standard, or mil spec. “I think the big picture is that although we’re selling it in kit form . . . it’s a real helicopter.”

The post The second life of the S-52 appeared first on Vertical Mag.

In some cases they fly as high as 7,000 feet (2,130 meters), lugging drill equipment and temporary encampment buildings into the frigid Canadian hinterland. They also carry geologists and other explorers looking for untapped deposits of gold, silver and other precious materials.

This flying job isn’t easy, and it’s far from an entry-level position. Given the global pilot shortage, it’s increasingly difficult to find qualified pilots able to work here.

But a recent spike in exploration activity is warmly welcomed by many Canadian helicopter operators. After years of sparse work in the sector, stemming from a decline in mineral prices that began around 2011, the mining sector there has rallied and is enjoying brighter days.

“The last few years have been getting busier and busier,” said Steven Williams, director of flight operations at Summit Helicopters, a Canadian mining specialist. “It’s just super promising.”

Summit has six Bell 407 helicopters dedicated primarily to drill moves, and in 2021, the company saw a record number of flight hours directly attributed to silver and gold exploration.

“It was a little bit lower last year, but not much,” said Williams. “And we’ve already got clients lined up for the summer [of 2023].”

Canada has vast known deposits of gold, silver, and diamonds. It’s also rich in cobalt, lithium, and other minerals used in electric vehicle batteries. In many circles, it’s believed the transition to lower-carbon industries may create a new mining boom in the country, and helicopter operators are cautiously optimistic about the role they’ll play.

“It’s looking as busy, if not busier [this year], in many of the projects,” said Williams. “It’s looking good.”

MARKET-DRIVEN ACTIVITY

The mineral exploration sector in Canada thrives and suffers in step with shifting global markets. When commodity prices are high, mining companies often invest in exploration to find lucrative new mineral and metal deposits. In a market downturn, those efforts are typically scaled back. Helicopter activity in the sector typically mirrors this boom-and-bust cycle.

“Some years are slower than others,” said Ryan Hinds, CEO of Silver King Helicopters in Smithers, B.C. “I would say that the last two to three years have kept us steady, but that is usual for us.”

Silver King operates a fleet of 10 Airbus AS350 helicopters, and specialized in mineral exploration when Hinds and his partner Missy launched the company in 2012. It has since expanded to serve the tourism and fire suppression markets, but Hinds is a long-time pilot with more than two decades of mineral exploration experience under his belt.

“It takes a substantial amount of experience to work mining and drill programs here due to the mountainous terrain and the challenging weather,” he said. “We are a group of professionals here who fight hard to maintain helicopter rates and high standards.”

EXPECTING THE UNEXPECTED

To a casual observer, commodities markets can seem fickle. It’s certain they’ll rise and fall; the problem is, nobody knows when or by how much. In 2011, mineral and metal prices reached a cyclical peak, driven by rapid growth in China and other emerging market economics, according to Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). As supply outpaced demand, prices began a decline that bottomed out in 2016.

Then came a steady market rally that endured through the last half of 2019. In early 2020, prices shifted due to economic lockdowns related to the Covid-19 pandemic, then recovered later the same year as supply diminished and demand increased.

The rise in prices intensified in 2021 and the first half of 2022 due to inflationary pressures and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. As prices continued to rise, Canadian mining companies sharply increased their expenditures for exploration and deposit appraisals.

Exploration activity was expected to reach $2.6 billion in 2022, based on reported spending intentions — an increase of about $1 billion from 2020. Gold and other precious metals were the main targets for exploration spending among Canadian companies.

This activity was part of a larger trend that saw the global nonferrous exploration budget increase by 16 percent in 2022 to $13 billion, according to a study by S&P Global Market Intelligence. Gold allocations that year increased by 12 percent worldwide to $6.9 billion, and copper increased by 21 percent to $2.8 billion — its highest levels in eight years.

Despite this promising news, it’s important to note recent expenditures are dwarfed by exploration budgets from a decade ago. They were still 58 percent lower than global exploration budgets in 2012, and the outlook for 2023 is only cautiously optimistic.

“With inflation creeping up . . . and metals markets facing macroeconomic headwinds, metals prices have corrected from their recent highs and are expected to fall further into 2023,” said analyst Aude Marjolin, writing in S&P Global’s 2023 Metals and Mining Industry Outlook.

“Moreover, capital costs and energy prices are expected to rise, leaving miners with potentially lower excess cash reserves to put toward purchasing activity or exploration — or both, depending on the acquired target.”

PANDEMIC PRESSURES

Although markets were partly to blame for the downturn, some helicopter operators in northern Canada also attribute the dip in exploration work to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The mine sites were doing well, but what you saw a bit of a hit on was remote field camps,” said Jonathan Talon, director of operations at Great Slave Helicopters in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. “They just weren’t able to put camps out, really,” he said. “So we didn’t see the amount of work that we would normally see in a given year.”

In 2022, this kind of activity rebounded, but it still only registered as “fairly average,” he said.

“[It was] what I would call a normal year, but I’m starting to question what normal is, at this point.”

Great Slave Helicopters has a fleet of 32 rotorcraft, with 46 pilots spread out over 15 bases in the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. The fleet includes four Bell 212s, two Bell 205s, 19 Airbus H125 AStars and a group of seven additional Bell 206 JetRanger and LongRanger helicopters.

Its roster of active pilots varies throughout the year, and Talon wouldn’t speculate on whether that will increase for the company’s peak mining season in June, July and August.

“This year so far, it looks fairly promising,” he said in a January 2023 interview. “We’re looking at not as busy of a year as last year, but still quite busy.”

Since many of Canada’s mining exploration sites are in remote northern areas, helicopters are the primary vehicle for supplying them with workers and large cargo. But the pilot shortage, coupled with new regulations for flight crew fatigue management, have put a strain on some northern operators.

“For a lot of what we do, we require people who have precision longline skills,” said Talon. “When it comes to working not directly during the summer months, there’s obviously snow on the ground, which requires a pilot who has had northern experience . . . it has been incredibly difficult.” Still, Talon said he’s “very optimistic” about the next two to three years.

“I think we have a very dynamic team,” he said. “And we’re very good at adapting, growing and shrinking as we need to, in order to accommodate what the world is doing at the time.

“It’s very difficult to say what’s going to happen now. I think nobody would argue the fact that year by year, it’s become increasingly difficult to anticipate what’s going to happen. But if you have a company that can move with the times, move with the paces, that changes a lot.

So I think we’re well positioned as a company.”

ABUNDANT MINING INQUIRIES

At Toronto-based National Helicopters, the management team receives several calls a month with offers of work in the mining sector. So far, it has had to turn them all down.

Up until five years ago, the company was active in the mining sector, working jobs in Mexico, the United States and Canada. But it stopped due to a need for larger and heavier equipment.

“They were looking for [a helicopter] with more capacity than what we currently have here,” said Dan Munro, president of National Helicopters. The company operates a fleet of 12 rotorcraft, including Robinson R22s, Bell 206 LongRangers, Bell 206 JetRangers, MBB Bo.105 and twin-engine Bell 430s.

“There’s a number of new mining plays that are starting up,” said Munro. “There’s some that have been restarted that were shut down. It’s all being driven by the demand for these precious metals in the electric vehicle [sector] and other equipment.”

These days, the company is known for its flightseeing tours over Niagara Falls and the adjacent countryside — a thriving wine region that serves as Canada’s answer to Napa Valley.

Munro said the company has considered a return to mineral exploration, but rising interest rates have complicated the need to finance new helicopters for the fleet.

“The interest rates are putting a damper on business in general,” he said.

“You have to decide whether you want to do it. Is it a long-term thing or a short-term thing? If you’re going to take on the financing, it has to be a long-term thing. So is that part of the mining industry going to stay or sustain itself? I don’t know.”

He laughed when asked if mining work is still on his list of possibilities.

“I’m really not sure,” he said. “My crystal ball isn’t that big.”

MINING THE RING OF FIRE

In Ontario’s far north, about 310 miles (500 kilometers) northeast of Thunder Bay, sits a massive swath of land known as the Ring of Fire. It’s viewed as one of central Canada’s most promising mineral development opportunities — and it’s a hotbed of exploration activity.

The Ring of Fire stretches over about 1,930 square miles (5,000 square kilometers) and deposits of chromite, copper, zinc, gold, diamond, nickel and platinum group elements have been found there.

As of January 2022, there were more than 26,000 active mining claims in the region, where developers see a prime opportunity to feed low- and zero-emission vehicle manufacturers.

Operators like Wisk Air Helicopters provide access to remote exploration sites, primarily by transporting drills and mining crews to places other vehicles can’t reach.

But despite a recent uptick in available work, the economic conditions of the last few years and a variable environment for permits have taken their toll.

“Mining used to be 40 percent of our work; now, it’s 10 percent,” said Mark Wiskemann, president, operations manager and chief pilot at Wisk Air Helicopters.

“It’s expensive to develop mines in Canada with the environmental and regulatory restrictions that are placed on exploration companies. As a result, they’ve gone to different countries, [and] our business has changed.”

In contrast to other operators, Wiskemann said it’s been easy to find qualified pilots to work in the region. “We’ve got lots of pilots,” he said.

Wisk Air operates a fleet of five Bell 407 helicopters, three Bell 412s and three Bell 206 LongRangers, with about 20 active pilots as of late January 2023.

A larger concern is the industry’s unpredictability.

“I’m cautiously optimistic [about the future], based on the regulatory problems, because that’s something an economic forecast cannot consider,” said Wiskemann.

“It’s difficult to buy aircraft, train pilots and engineers and mechanics . . . we’re talking millions of dollars. It’s difficult to do that if the earning environment changes without notice.”

In Canada’s mining sector, the only safe prediction is that unpredictable conditions are sure to follow. Today’s upswing may soon beget another downturn. Helicopter operators know they’ll have to adapt to survive.

“These things always work in a rollercoaster,” said Dan Munro, president of National Helicopters. “It’s up and down all the time.”

The post Operators report rebound in Canada’s mining sector appeared first on Vertical Mag.

All those in the eVTOL sector already know, along with revolutionizing commercial transportation of people and cargo, disaster relief, some aspects of healthcare, etc., eVTOLs will also significantly change military and peacekeeping operations.

Indeed, the U.S. military has been taking a broad and deep look at eVTOLs for years now. Joby Aviation, Beta Technologies, Elroy Air and LIFT, for example, were all early participants in the U.S. Air Force AFWERX Agility Prime program and are still very much involved in various military research projects.

There are many obvious reasons why air forces, armies and navies are interested in eVTOL technology, but also some reasons not as apparent.

Off the top, there’s the ability to vertically take off and land, of course, and the way eVTOLs are powered by charging or by quick battery/fuel cell swap — no need to worry about the fuel logistics needed with helicopters and conventional aircraft. Then there’s the expected autonomous aspect, similar to the use of drones.

AFWERX spokesperson Ciska Bloemhard foresees that eVTOL tech will both “supplement legacy military platforms” but also provide “a hydrocarbon-independent alternative for missions like middle-mile logistics, personnel recovery and humanitarian aid.” Bloemhard added that with eVTOLs, the military hopes to reduce overall costs — both operational and maintenance — of various missions.

To this list of potential eVTOL benefits, those at Joby added increased speed of maintenance and significant improvements in reliability and acoustics compared to conventional aircraft like helicopters. In addition, a Joby spokesperson said “aircraft like ours are also able to take off immediately, rather than require minutes to spin up prior to takeoff.”

Leaders at Elroy Air — vice president of strategy and business development Kofi Asante, CEO Dave Merrill, and government business development director Karl Purdy — added efficient defense resupply to the list.

They said resupply is hardly optimized with traditional helicopters — particularly in combat scenarios, for example, because helicopter transport frameworks generally don’t involve enough people and aircraft to achieve the optimum on-demand tempo.

There’s already a shift, Elroy’s team said (and explained in documents like the U.S. Air Force Science and Technology Strategy), “toward larger numbers of lower-cost assets in the military, where each individual asset is attritable [or can be lost in battle].” This applies, of course, to drones, eVTOLs and other technology that can be operated remotely or autonomously.

Elroy leadership also pointed out that eVTOL technology better supports the concept of “places, not bases.” Simply put, eVTOL systems “enable a nimbler approach to staging people and materiel, where instead of establishing permanent bases that must be built and defended, the fighting force can pick up and move more readily, confusing an enemy who would like to destroy infrastructure to create advantage.”

Autonomous technology

The autonomous aspect of eVTOLs, Rustagi said, opens up many new use cases for military forces, including having many of them operate in tandem. Automated pickup/drop-off of payloads also means more cargo/personnel can be delivered within a given time period and greater overall operational efficiencies.

Asante, Merrill and Purdy at Elroy Air list increased risk tolerance as another benefit of autonomous technology. Uncrewed aircraft can take greater operational risks — flying resupply materiel into active fight zones and contested airspace, flying low to the ground, and so on.

Autonomous aircraft can also be operated continuously, regardless of the physical location of pilots or caps on working hours per day of pilots/remote pilots. There are also no pilot/cockpit requirements, reducing manufacturing costs, and for some applications like defense, a lower standard of certification may become acceptable, particularly for attritable air assets.

Ultralight benefits

Whether piloted or autonomous, ultralight eVTOLs offer other specific benefits for military applications.

The crewed version of LIFT’s Hexa ultralight eVTOL has been in tests in partnership with the U.S. military since 2018.

“The military likes that we were quick to get flying and test critical safety features,” Rustagi said. “We have done a lot of testing in partnership with both the University of Texas and the U.S. military through U.S. Air Force innovation research grants, alongside the Agility Prime program.”

He added that the Hexa’s configuration and ultralight design make it particularly attractive for military use. As an ultralight, the crewed version is already authorized for first response and recreational flights over populated areas, and both the crewed and cargo versions already have “military flight releases” to allow test flights at military bases.

Other military benefits of an eVTOL like the Hexa are the reduced level of complexity and maintenance, as well as the much greater safety they provide compared to helicopters, Rustagi said.

“Our aircraft has only 18 moving parts, [plus a joystick in the crewed version],” he explained. “With eVTOLs, you’re trading hardware risk for cybersecurity risk, but that’s why we have multiple redundancies. We have 18 independently-powered rotors, a triple-redundant flight computer — and we may add a fourth — and the ability to land and takeoff from water. We are also testing a whole-aircraft ballistic parachute in case of total motor loss.”

The military, he added, also likes the Hexa’s modular design and flexibility.

“Basically, below our rotor system, with its motors, propellers and batteries, the rest of the aircraft is essentially payload,” Rustagi reported. “We’ve already tested several cargo modules with remote flight capability. The cargo version can carry a payload of up to 350 to 400 pounds [160 to 180 kilograms].”

The Hexa is also suitable for rapid deployment, he said. The firm has been brainstorming with the military about launching from a large land vehicle, and there’s even a future possibility of dropping them from planes, each with a parachute that helps them safely reach an appropriate altitude and speed.

An eVTOL the size of the Hexa can also be charged anywhere there’s a way to generate electricity — for example, with foldable solar panels or a small wind turbine, technology it could carry onboard. No heavy-duty system is required to charge the Hexa’s batteries, just three regular outlets. LIFT is also working on extending the Hexa’s range with a fossil fuel-battery hybrid power system.

(Elroy’s Chaparral hybrid eVTOL — not an ultralight — also has a hybrid-electric powertrain. “The ability to refuel rather than recharge means that hybrid-electric eVTOLs can operate in a much wider set of operating locations, including those without electrical power infrastructure, which is very important to early military operations and austere locations,” Elroy’s team said.)

Some further updates

Designing for military markets is no different than other markets in that faster speeds, better reliability, more payload and longer range are always desirable. Refinements or new breakthroughs in these areas and more are sure to come in the years ahead. 

LIFT’s Hexa is expected to be commercially available sometime this year, which means military use will be officially possible at that point.

Elroy currently has three contracts with the U.S. Air Force, all with an autonomous focus. The contracts cover flight envelope expansion, rapid deployment, and hybrid powertrain development.

Joby, upon certification, plans to be ready to start on-base operations with the Department of Defense in 2024. Last year, Joby announced an expansion of its existing contract with the Agility Prime program that increased the contract’s potential value by more than US$45 million, bringing the potential value of the total contract to more than US$75 million. At the same time, the contract has also widened defense partnerships to include the U.S. Marine Corps, which is participating in government-directed flight tests and use case exploration.

Beta’s Alia-250 eVTOL is currently being assessed by the U.S. military for a variety of mission uses. “We’ve achieved several significant milestones with our partners at Agility Prime over the past few years, including the first crewed flight of an electric aircraft with both the Air Force and Army,” a Beta spokesperson said. “Those qualitative evaluation flights were the culmination of months of hard work and a weeklong training program inclusive of ground school academics and hands-on simulator training. In addition to these technical demonstrations, these partners have shared invaluable insight and expertise that helps us continue to develop our training tools and flight test programs significantly.” 

In addition, “our work with the Army continues to progress well … last year, they completed a crewed quality evaluation of our Alia-250 aircraft, making Maj. Wes Ogden the first Army aviator to fly in an electric aircraft and progress through our ground and simulator training programs. As well, we have had a number of senior Army leaders join us [at our company headquarters in] Burlington, [Vermont].”

The post How eVTOL technology can be used in military missions appeared first on Vertical Mag.

Two years before the Wright Brothers took that trailblazing flight over the sands of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the first efforts at law enforcement were introduced into the wild west territory of Arizona. In 1901, the governor established the Arizona Rangers to address the problems of smuggling and livestock rustling. That founding force lasted just eight years. Arizona transitioned from territory to statehood in 1912, but it would be 19 years before an official law enforcement operation was designated. With a superintendent, a desk sergeant, and 14 patrolmen, the Arizona Highway Patrol was the genesis of the organization that exists today.

In 1969, the governor combined a variety of state agencies, including the Highway Patrol, under one banner — the Arizona Department of Public Safety. As the state has grown, so has the DPS. From that first handful of Arizona Rangers, there are now over 2,100 employees statewide, spread among a variety of support functions, including highway patrol, criminal investigations, technology services, and many more.

Even before the AZDPS received its official designation, the benefits of aviation were being realized. In 1962, the first state-flown aircraft took to the skies. Initially, the fleet was simply a few small airplanes used for transportation and limited observation.

As the Vietnam War was at its peak in the mid-1960s, the use of helicopters became pivotal for military operations. It wasn’t long before the value to stateside law enforcement would become evident. Rotary-wing aircraft were added to the AZDPS as part of a joint venture project with Arizona State University in 1969. The Air Medical Evacuation System (AMES) was a $300,000 U.S. Department of Transportation grant-funded study to evaluate the applicability of vertical-lift aircraft to the role of public safety in the state. The result was a resounding success, in both criminal surveillance and medical evacuation assignments. Thus, in 1972, the AZDPS Aviation Bureau was established and has been in continuous service ever since.

The first helicopters to join the bureau were single-engine Fairchild Hiller FH-1100s, based at Falcon Field Airport (KFFZ) in Mesa, Arizona. Two Hillers were used in the AMES study and carried over, along with the five pilots, to the now-permanent operation. It would be another six years before medics were specifically trained for the specialties of in-flight duties, a position still staffed as part of the flight crew. As technology advanced and demand increased throughout the 1970s, additional bases were opened across the state and the Hillers were replaced with Bell 206 JetRangers. Over the subsequent decades, the JetRangers were swapped out for LongRangers before settling into the current fleet.

Into the modern era

At the turn of the 21st century, the Aviation Bureau once again turned to Bell for the next generation of helicopters. Over the next several years, the entire fleet would be modernized with the addition of the Bell 407, the newest single-engine offering in the class. By this time, the air unit had also increased its operational footprint and was servicing the state from four bases in Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, and Kingman. In addition, they utilize a designated maintenance facility at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.

Historically, fixed-wing aircraft outnumbered the rotary wings in the hangar. Recently, there has been a reversal of that trend. They now operate two Beechcraft King Airs — a 200 and a 250. Unlike some agencies that employ airplanes for surveillance, their assignment at AZDPS is restricted to transport. Based at Sky Harbor, missions are primarily for government officials and equipment.

Although the 407 is a formidable aircraft, the variety of environments across Arizona can prove challenging, particularly the excessive heat and high altitudes of its mountainous regions. To combat this, after an extensive evaluation process, the AZDPS accepted delivery of its first Bell 429 twin-engine helicopter in 2017. Seeking a more capable aircraft, the 429 checked all the boxes for search-and-rescue (SAR) and law enforcement equipment. The laundry list of technology includes Garmin GTN750/650 avionics, Churchill (now Shotover) augmented reality mapping, Technisonic TDFM-9000 radio, WESCAM MX-10 imaging platform, Trakka Systems TrakkaBeam searchlight, RHOTHETA RT-600 wide-band direction finder, and satellite telephone.

The single-pilot certified 429 with its four-axis autopilot adds a great deal of confidence and assistance to the crews. Night vision goggles (NVGs) are standard equipment for all team members, including medics. For the medical side of the house, the 429 can carry all basic lifesaving gear. Completing the missions often involves the 600-pound-rated Collins Aerospace Goodrich hoist and the Axnes wireless intercom system. Completion of the ship was performed by Hangar One in Carlsbad, California.

Talented people

Chief pilot Lowell Neshem is the second highest ranking pilot in the Aviation Bureau, a role he has prepared for much of his life. “Since the beginning of my flying career, I viewed AZDPS as the ultimate goal,” he told Vertical Valor during a recent visit. An Arizona native, Neshem’s first exposure to helicopters was as a young boy growing up on a ranch in the northern portion of the state.

“A Bell 47 spent a week at our ranch gathering donkeys as part of a Bureau of Land Management operation. I was intrigued by that machine so, after my four-year enlistment in the U.S. Navy, I began my pursuit of a flying career,” he recalled.

Neshem’s more than 6,000 flight hours certainly qualify him for his position. “I’ve worked as a flight instructor in Idaho, a tour and utility pilot in Alaska, and an emergency medical services (EMS) pilot in Arizona. That background has given me ideal experience for my role with the DPS,” he said. “I first joined in 2013, when I was assigned to the Flagstaff base, then transferred to the Deer Valley [Phoenix] base in 2016 where I have been since.”

When discussing the role and impact that the Aviation Bureau has on his home state, Neshem is quick to give credit to the talented pilots under his command. “We have great people here, and the best flying. We cover a very diverse landscape, from low deserts to 12,000-foot [3,600-meter] mountains, and that can be demanding on our aircraft and our personnel,” he said. “We respond anywhere in the state for all types of emergencies, including for our troopers and other rural police agencies. Our mission includes aerial law enforcement and technical rescue support to all 15 counties across Arizona. The addition of the 429 has also added hoist operations for both day and night. Often, we are the only option for those in need, whether it be officers on the ground or civilians in an emergency.”

Neshem’s people are spread across the four aviation posts. At each location is a base supervisor who oversees the pilots and medics assigned there. All paramedics are sworn state troopers, while the pilots are hired as civilians. Ideally, there would be a pilot and two medics per flight, but staffing issues often prevent that.

“We are currently promoting paramedics from our trooper ranks and we’re always looking for pilots,” Neshem remarked. “The shortages in the industry have affected us just like everyone else. The situation even has us looking into hiring non-sworn paramedics to fill the gaps.”

All crews work 24-hour shifts with a required six shifts per month. Aircraft remain at their bases until called out. Routine patrol is not a normal part of their duties. When the call does come in, the teams are well-equipped for whatever they may face. Ensuring the crews are ready for those calls falls to trooper pilot Scott Clifton. The third-generation Arizonan was raised in the aviation world.

“My dad flew helicopters in Vietnam and then as a news pilot in Phoenix for over 30 years. He also started a flight school at Phoenix Deer Valley Airport, which is where I got my start, cleaning airplanes in exchange for flight lessons,” Clifton recalled. If it flies, Clifton has probably piloted it. “I got my licenses in sailplanes, hot air balloons, fixed wings, and then rotor wings. I had my pilot’s license before my driver’s license.”

His desire to head down the helicopter pathway likely resulted from the stick time his father provided when Clifton was a teenager. After working as an airborne news photographer with his dad, eventually they swapped roles and Clifton took over pilot duties. He continued in that capacity for 16 years until joining AZDPS in 2013.

“Back when I was flying for the news, we covered the entire state, so I was meeting DPS pilots at scenes all the time. They kept pushing me to join them and I finally gave in,” he said.

Until recently, all AZDPS pilots were hired as civilians and then sent through the police academy to become sworn troopers. Now, pilots are no longer law enforcement trained. What has not changed is the experience level for new aviators.

“Although we have a minimum requirement of 2,000 hours, our average pilot hire has between 4,000 and 5,000 hours and over 10 years of in the industry,” Clifton explained. With the extensive repertoire of mission types they fly, the broad experience base is a necessity. “We do everything from EMS, law enforcement, NVG flying, SAR, hoist, short-haul, and more. Because of that, it helps to bring in pilots who have those skills already under their belts.”

Once hired and run through the training programs, pilots are assigned to one of the four bases. While the goal is to always have all four locations on-call, that is often not possible. “Like most sectors of the aviation world, we have been impacted by hiring difficulties, especially with the quality of pilots we’re looking for,” Clifton said.

Even with these challenges, at least two bases are always ready to respond. However, not all flying is for emergency response. “Although we don’t fly routine patrol, we do an extensive amount of training. Almost every shift there is some sort of exercise,” he said. Formal instruction includes annual Bell factory training for the 407s. “Bell pilots come to us for day and night recurrencies, including NVG flights and full touchdown auto-rotations.”

In addition to those requirements, the specialties of the 429 require a trip to Bell’s Fort Worth, Texas, facility for flights, as well as simulator work. With longer and more severe forest fire seasons, AZDPS pilots stay at the ready with annual fire training with Bambi Buckets and swift-water rescue practice. To gather the teams together and discuss various issues, a two-day safety stand-down is held yearly.

Medical mission

The AZDPS may be viewed as primarily a law enforcement entity due to its large volume of highway patrol activity. However, the mission of the Aviation Bureau is focused on SAR, most often with emergency medical intervention required. Handling that role are the onboard medics.

Trooper paramedic Michael Allen was born and raised in Arizona but moved to the Las Vegas area to pursue his lifelong desire to be a firefighter. “It’s what I always wanted to do. Once I got into the field, the rescue work became my passion,” he said.

After returning to Arizona, he continued his firefighting career, always leaning toward the rescue function. Allen was also fascinated with flying, so he kept an eye open for an opportunity to combine the two. Everything came together when, at the behest of a fellow firefighter, he participated in a ride-along with AZDPS. During that visit, he was told that the Aviation Bureau badly needed medics. That’s all he needed to hear – Allen joined as a trooper in 2017.

His good fortune continued when he was in the police academy and the medic need reached critical status. Upon graduation and three months of obligatory road work as a trooper, Allen was transferred to the Aviation Bureau, the first new-hire to be assigned to a specialty unit directly out of the academy.

Allen’s passion for his work is palpable during discussions of his duties. “We have a responsibility to the public. We are one of the busiest hoist operators in the world and that demands that we have the best equipment, best pilots, and best training for the job,” he proclaimed.

The hoist rescue training that Allen and the other rescue medics receive is from Arizona-based Priority 1 Air Rescue. Not only are they tasked with retrieving patients from precarious situations, but they must also treat a wide variety of injuries.

“We can handle pretty much anything that a ground-based emergency response can. Because of that, we are required to maintain a high level of proficiency,” Allen explained. The skills of the paramedics are assured with extensive initial training and recurrent sessions on both medical and hoist operations. “Our commitment to safety requires that we demonstrate all phases of our mission profile every three months.”

Crews are held to a level of expertise that is essential, he added. “We hoist and provide lifesaving care almost daily, across the entire state. The service we offer is a necessity. The skills our people learn and are held to are integral to not only our safety, but that of the people we help. We are as safe as you can be while doing dangerous things.”

Repair responsibilities

The monumental task of keeping the AZDPS fleet flying falls to the maintenance section, based at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. One of the more seasoned personnel is mechanic Mike Hamilton. After a lengthy career in the helicopter field, Hamilton joined AZDPS 18 years ago. “I had been working for a repair station here in The Valley and they were moving their operation to Texas. I had also been part-time with DPS so, not wanting to leave the state, it was a natural, easy transition,” he recalled.

Hamilton is one of three full-time helicopter mechanics, along with a supervisor. Also at the Phoenix base are two airplane mechanics, one full-time and one part-time.

“We complete most everything here in-house,” Hamilton explained. “We don’t do major engine work or overhauls but can handle pretty much everything else, including sheet metal and avionics.” The shortages across the industry have also impacted the Aviation Bureau. “It’s difficult for everyone right now. We are constantly on the lookout for qualified personnel. While we may need people, we refuse to lower our requirements and hire underqualified people. We have a duty to the pilots, the crews, and the citizens and we can’t let any of them down.”

Expanded fleet

The success of the Aviation Bureau and its contribution to the state of Arizona is well documented. As the mission profile changes and calls for service increase, they know they must be prepared for whatever may come. Support for the operation comes from the top down and it is unwavering. “We are trusted with the mission, and it is up to us to make the go/no-go call on every single incident,” Clifton said. “Our management is 100% supportive of us and what we do.”

Management has also recognized the impact that the Bell 429 has had on statewide response, in both safety and lifesaving. To that end, a second 429 has been acquired and a third was recently approved in the state budget, with plans for acceptance in 2023. “That aircraft has been a complete game-changer for us. We are excited with the added capabilities we will have with more of them in the fleet,” Clifton said.

For 50 years, the airborne troopers of the AZDPS have provided lifesaving SAR services. The backing of the state’s elected officials by providing funding for the best equipment and training available, along with steadfast dedication by the crews, ensures that wherever help is needed across Arizona, assistance will be on the way.

The post Arizona aerial troopers ready for action    appeared first on Vertical Mag.

Less than 16 years after Igor Sikorsky flew the first modern helicopter in 1939, the first helicopter in New Zealand took to the skies over Auckland. In the seven decades since, helicopters have become not just a convenience, but often a necessity to enable a way of life for many in the island country.

As its name implies, the Southland region is the southernmost of the 16 governmental regions in New Zealand. With its 100,000 residents dispersed over 12,000 square miles (31,000 square kilometers), it is the second-most sparsely populated region, and it contains some of the country’s most fertile farmlands. Helicopters have become an almost perfect fit for the variety of the farming needs in Southland. Spraying crops for fertilization, desiccation, weeding, fire control and seeding all fall into the wheelhouse of the small, nimble aircraft and seasoned pilots. Since 2018, a group of highly experienced aviators has united their talents to provide these exact services for the farmers of southern New Zealand.

Becoming Southland Helicopters

Chief pilot Hayden Cherry grew up in the coastal town of Oamaru, best known for its penguin population. Unlike his flightless neighbors, Cherry was destined for the skies. “I’ve just always wanted to fly,” he told Vertical. “When I was in school, riding on the bus, I’d see a local helicopter pilot spraying the paddocks. I thought, that’s pretty cool — I want to do that!”

He earned his commercial helicopter rating in 2002, having initially trained in a Robinson R22. He had also recorded some time in an MD 500. After working at a local agricultural operator, he headed to Papua New Guinea to provide support for oil drilling rigs. He returned to New Zealand after a year, and a new opportunity quickly presented itself. “I’d been home for a week when an operator who had just bought a base in Invercargill rang me up,” he said. “They were running a Bell JetRanger and offered me the position to run the base.” He accepted the job and made the move south.

Within a few years, that company was purchased by Heliventures. At the time, there were two bases under the previous company: one in Balclutha, and Cherry’s in Invercargill. In 2018, John Collins, a long-time helicopter operator and joint owner of Heliventures, purchased the Invercargill base to set out on his own. Collins and Cherry joined forces, and Southland Helicopters was almost up and running. But there was still one puzzle piece missing.

The last member of the trio that formed Southland is Willy Mills, who today serves as its training manager. “Aviation is in my family,” Mills told Vertical. “My older brother is a [Boeing] 777 captain for Emirates and my parents owned a helicopter in Southland before I was even born. I never really wanted to do anything else — I just wanted to be a helicopter pilot.” Mills earned his private pilot license as a teenager, followed soon after by his commercial rating. During his training, he worked as a loader for a tourism and agricultural helicopter company on the west coast as part of the ground crew, but they never had an opening for a pilot. His first paid flying job was as a whale-watching pilot in Kaikoura where he flew Robinsons and a JetRanger. “I learned a lot there,” he said. “We were flying several miles off the coast, 200-foot separation between helicopters and airplanes, sometimes just on the opposite side of the orbit. It required a great deal of attention and awareness of your surroundings.”

Mills had no way of knowing at the time, but his desire to move back to his hometown area near Invercargill would be serendipitous. After a short break from flying, he was drawn back in after an interview with Jeff McMillan of HeliSouth (Cherry’s business partner). “He asked if I wanted a loader driving job and to work towards my ag rating,” said Mills. It was an easy decision for the young pilot.

When Collins and Cherry decided to form Southland, they said it was an obvious decision to bring Mills along. “I loved being part of this from the beginning,” said Mills. “It’s exciting to get up in the morning and fight your own fight, not someone else’s. And none of this would be possible if it weren’t for Johnny [Collins]. Hayden [Cherry], me, and the rest of our amazing team handle the day-to-day operations, but Johnny oversees it all.”

In addition to his duties as a line pilot, Mills also makes sure that all the aviators at Southland are kept up to speed in training. “We conduct recurrent training every six months and yearly ag training. I’ll go out with each of the pilots and have them do a check-out flight, along with fire bucket practice, in case we get called out for a firefighting mission. We want to be ready.”

For additional training, every couple of years the company brings in an outside expert. “We have a longstanding relationship with Terry Tyner. He’s a former military pilot who’s passionate about the MD 600. We call him the ‘600 Guru’ because he’s also an engineer who can take them apart and put them back together. He’ll come out, beat us pilots up a bit, and, because of his maintenance background, he provides training for our mechanic. He’s a great guy and great for our operation,” Mills said.

Choosing aircraft

Now that Southland had the key members of the team assembled, a base was needed. During the first year, the company was stationed at Invercargill Airport. A decrepit hangar combined with strong coastal winds and salty sea air had them searching further inland. An old peat factory with a former school building next door was found, and became the new home. But there was still one final, quite significant part of the equation missing: the right aircraft.

When the split from Heliventures was made, three MD 520Ns, with the unique NOTAR anti-torque system, were brought over. With more than 10,000 flight hours in his logbook, Cherry has flown quite a selection of helicopters. Pressed for a favorite, he has a soft spot for the 520N. However, he soon found that it was not up to the tasks that they were throwing at it. He then began to inquire about its bigger brother — the 600N.

“We did our due diligence,” he said. “We spoke with pilots who had significant hours in them, we reviewed every accident report we could find, we talked to engineers, parts suppliers — you name it,” Cherry said. “What we found was that there was a lot of bad information floating around, mostly from people who had never flown one. We found that it operates a lot like the 520 but it’s more stable, it’s more powerful, it’s faster, and probably nicer to fly.”

Word got out that Southland was on the hunt for some MD 600s, and it soon received a call from a broker who had recently found a trove of them. The Turkish police had purchased 10 600s several years prior, but had moved to a different model. “He called me up and I told him I was interested if he would take the 520s off my hands,” Cherry said.

The two made a deal, and over the next year four low-time 600s were integrated into the Southland fleet as the 520s transitioned out. “We got them with 1,000 hours on them and they’ve been great for us,” said Cherry. “Having four works perfectly because it allows us to keep three out working while one is in maintenance. They have become true workhorses and tackle everything we have asked of them.”

Each helicopter is outfitted identically, making the move from ship to ship easier for the pilots. The equipment list includes a Garmin avionics package with Aera 660 five-inch touchscreen GPS mapping units, a GMA 345 audio panel, and dual GTR 225 radios. Stratus transponders and USB power units round out the center stack. TracPlus RockAIR GPS devices allow for high-resolution tracking, two-way messaging, and emergency flight monitoring.

With the majority of the work that Southland handles being agricultural, the most efficient and precise method of application is a priority. To achieve this, the team has turned to the latest TracMap offering. The TML-A GPS aviation guidance unit features a large, full-color touchscreen and easy-to-use interface that allows pilots to plan their spraying jobs and monitor progress in real-time with satellite and topographic maps. “We have the latest version and they are wonderful,” said Mills. “It allows our pilots to see exactly where the product is being placed so there is less waste and more accurate application.”

Two primary methods of administering fertilizers and pesticides are utilized, depending on the type of compound. For spraying, the aircraft are equipped with 600-liter (160-US gallon) Oceania Aviation belly tanks, which can be installed and removed “in a matter of minutes,” said Mills. When dropping fertilizer or other components, the company uses buckets that can hold up to 1,210 lb. (550 kg) of material. To keep the operation fully in-house, Southland also owns the ground trucks used for transport, loading, and fueling. A ground crew of four personnel handles the land-based tasks while Cherry and Mills, along with pilots Paul Claridge and Logan Sterling, take on the aerial duties.

Chief engineer Paul Tracey has the responsibility of making sure the fleet stays airborne. After learning his trade in the military, where he maintained a variety of helicopters, including Hueys and Leonardo AW109s, he worked at Flightline Aviation (which became Oceania Aviation in 2019) where he maintained MD 500s. “We were working on Heliventures’ MD 520s, and when Southland split off, I signed on with them,” he told Vertical. “[Cherry] was quite aggressive with what he wanted to do — heading out on his own, trying new aircraft that no one else was using. I liked the challenge of all that.”

Tracey echoes the rest of the team when discussing the 600s. “There aren’t a lot of them around, so working on them and finding parts can be difficult, but we know what we need and try to keep a year of regularly scheduled items on hand,” he said. “We’ve established as many contacts as we can, both locally and worldwide, of others flying them, and that helps a lot.” With just himself and occasional contracted assistance, Tracey keeps quite busy, but he’s clear on his enjoyment of the job. “I like doing things with the 600s that others haven’t done, and I really like the one-on-one with Hayden [Cherry]. There’s always something new here.”

Working the land

In terms of the company’s workload, Cherry said Southland will do “pretty much anything” a customer needs. But with over 3,000 individual farms encompassing more than 2.6 million acres in the region, ag work continues to occupy the lion’s share of Southland’s flying. “We do the occasional tour or wedding or hunting trip, but we’ve found our niche with agricultural work,” he said. “That makes up 95 percent of our jobs.” With this emphasis on ag work, coupled with the experience Cherry’s team brings to the table, Southland has established a solid reputation in the southern regions around Invercargill.

“We know the farmers and the people that look after the crops, the companies providing the chemicals, and we all work together towards a common goal of ensuring the best end product at the best possible price,” said Cherry.

The trio of Collins, Cherry, and Mills have shown that they are open to any challenge the future may throw at them. They took a chance when they went out on their own and gambled on an aircraft that was untested in their line of work. What does the future hold for the partners? “More aircraft are always on our mind,” Cherry said. “But we won’t stretch ourselves beyond having enough work to support it. It all depends on what happens around us in the farming industry. What we have now is working just fine, but if the need arises, we’ll be ready.”

While the company name has only been around for five years, the wealth of pooled experience has established Southland Helicopters as a top choice for rotary-wing operations in the southern regions of New Zealand. A forward-thinking management group, a solid fleet of perfectly-suited aircraft, and a reputation of safety and commitment to the farmers that employ them all add up to a bright future for the team at Southland Helicopters.

The post Putting the MD 600Ns to work for New Zealand farmers appeared first on Vertical Mag.

Aerial firefighters in the Golden State face a year-round fire season. One of the tools at Cal Fire’s disposal in combating their spread and severity is a prescribed burn. This form of precision landscaping is carefully planned through the department’s vegetation management program (VMP) to clear excess brush in areas naturally prone to wildfire — essentially reducing the fuel that would otherwise feed an uncontrolled blaze. It leaves a gap in the vegetation that acts as a barrier to slow the progress of a wildfire.

While prescribed burns can take place year-round based on landowners’ needs and recommendations from Cal Fire’s subject matter experts, they’re more commonly carried out during a small burn window in the fall. This is when fuel moisture and other conditions are just right, Ginger Haight, unit environmental scientist at Cal Fire, told Vertical.

In October 2022, one of the organization’s Bell UH-1H Super Hueys was tasked with carrying out a firing operation in the Gabilan Range in Salinas. Mounted with an aerial tool known as a helitorch, the Super Huey dropped ignited lumps of gelled fuel (using Flash 21 liquid fuel gelling agent) along the side the mountain, leaving behind a line of fire.

Haight describes the helitorch as a great tool to use on rugged terrain that might be difficult for ground crews to reach, and it also serves to quickly ignite vegetation.

“It speeds up the burning process,” she said. “Since we’re burning in October and November, typically for that kind of fuel type, our burn window is very narrow. We pretty much only get a few days within the month, and then there’s only five to six hours within that day that we can accomplish our burn.”

On standby was the department’s newest addition to the air force — a Sikorsky S70i Cal Fire Hawk. Loaded with 1,000 US gallons (3,785 liters) of water, the Fire Hawk was ready to extinguish any slop-overs — that is, fire that crosses a control line intended to confine the blaze within the prescribed burn plot.

Meanwhile, more than 100 firefighters were on the ground helping to carry out the planned burn, including at least 10 fire engines, three hand crews and two dozers. The mission was completed over three days, burning approximately 3,000 acres broken up into three blocks.

Mimicking a natural wildfire, these prescribed burns work to reduce the severity and frequency of destructive fires. They also optimize soil and water productivity, and improve wildlife habitat and biodiversity.

In 2021, California firefighters battled nearly 7,400 fires that burned more than 2.6 million acres, resulting in three deaths and more than 3,800 properties damaged or destroyed. But none of those incidents were as devastating as the “Camp Fire” of 2018, named after Camp Creek Road where the wildfire started in Butte County.

With 85 civilian fatalities, more than 18,800 structures destroyed, and more than 153,300 acres burned, the Camp Fire is considered to be the deadliest and most destructive in California history. Investigators narrowed down the cause of the fire to electrical transmission lines owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electricity (PG&E). The dry vegetation, coupled with strong winds, low humidity and warm temperatures, was believed to be the catalyst behind the deadly fire’s rapid spread.

With a mission to prevent such a destructive fire from happening again, Cal Fire ramped up its fuel reduction efforts through its VMP, carrying out prescribed burns that are carefully planned based on weather patterns, fuel moisture and wind direction. With 2.2 million acres in San Benito and Monterey counties, this crucial program works to create a defensible space between a potential wildfire and private property. 

Cal Fire also teamed up with researchers from the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center at San Jose State University (SJSU) to study the third block of the October 2022 prescribed burn. Haight said researchers were on site to “investigate the physics and meteorological aspects of explosive fire growth in canyon topography. The experimental design focused on allowing a head fire to propagate freely from the bottom of the canyon to the top.”

Using a combination of helicopter and drone infrared (IR) imagery, researchers collected data for high-resolution fire front evolution and fire perimeters. The helicopter flew at 1,200 feet (365 meters) above ground level (AGL) and carried the SJSU wildfire imaging system. Meanwhile, the drone flew below 350 ft. (106 m) AGL and carried a special IR camera supplied by researchers from the University of Melbourne in Australia.

Haight said the research team gained new observations and data on canyon fire spread, improved understanding on fire spread mechanisms in canyon topography, and new and comprehensive data for fire behavior model testing and evaluation, which will become an international benchmark to test all fire behavior prediction systems.

In addition, “instruments were placed on the PG&E poles supplied by Stella-Jones Corp. to test fire proofing materials for utility poles,” Haight said. “These instruments measured turbulence and heat fluxes of the fire as the fire spreads past the towers.”

For Cal Fire, the data from the study is expected to give them insight into how they can better protect firefighters and forecast future fire risk, fire progression, and smoke dispersion.

A powerful firefighting air force

Cal Fire’s air force consists of more than 60 fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, making it one of the largest civil aerial firefighting fleets in the world. The aircraft are strategically located throughout the state — at its 14 air tanker bases, 10 Cal Fire helitack bases and one Cal Fire/San Diego County Sheriff helitack base.

The department’s helicopter fleet includes five Bell UH-1H Super Hueys, which will eventually be replaced with an incoming fleet of up to 12 Sikorsky S70i Cal Fire Hawks — 10 of which are already in service. Expected to bring enhanced capabilities, including flight safety, higher payloads, increased power margins, and night flying capabilities, the Fire Hawks are built specifically for Cal Fire, and completed by United Rotorcraft in Englewood, Colorado.

With its 1,000-US gallon fixed tank with pilot-controlled drop volumes, the Fire Hawks have the ability to carry nearly three times more water or foam than the Super Hueys. And unlike the Super Hueys, which are not always configured for air rescue, the new Fire Hawks have a rescue hoist system that is “built-in and always ready to deploy,” said Haight. “[It] can transition to different mission requirements on the fly.”

On the fixed-wing side, Cal Fire’s fleet includes 23 Grumman S-2T air tankers and 16 OV-10 Bronco air tactical aircraft. Cal Fire expects to welcome seven Lockheed Martin C-130H Hercules air tankers in the future.

The post Raining down fire appeared first on Vertical Mag.

Finland bought its first helicopter — an Mi-1 — in 1961. Three more were eventually acquired from the USSR. The Mi-1s, however, were not very popular due to their very modest performance. During the following years, the Finnish air force put into service Mi-4s, then Agusta-Bell AB-206As and the Aerospatiale Alouette II. They were increasingly efficient helicopters, but didn’t meet the country’s need for a real transport helicopter that would allow it to move combatants over great distances.

In the early 1970s, Finland finally decided to launch an acquisition program for a powerful aircraft that would support troops on the ground in the harshest environments. The country turned to the USSR: the Mi-8 was a powerful helicopter, but the purchase also represented a commercial pledge to its large neighbor.

The first Mi-8 was delivered on May 28, 1973. Over the years, Finland received a total of 8 Mi-8Ts and two Mi-8Ps. On their arrival in the country, the aircraft received western weather radar and radios. Despite the loss of an aircraft in 1982 (it sank through the ice during a rescue mission), the Finns accumulated more than 36,000 flight hours on the type in 37 years of use.

A major turning point came in 1997, when a reorganization of the air force resulted in all helicopters being transferred to the army. On this date, the Utti Jaeger Regiment was also created, with its parachute battalion receiving two main missions: deep reconnaissance behind enemy lines (a mission mastered by the Finns since their wars against the Soviet Union) and special operations in an urban environment.

In 2001, four years after the creation of the regiment, the helicopter battalion was attached to it, with a double mission: to support the operations of all the services and branches of the armed forces (and the special forces in particular), and to help civil authorities such as the police, firefighters and border guards.

Replacing the Mi8

The reorganization of the air force was completed by a major acquisition program that sought to replace the Mi-8 fleet and double its size. The Finnish army was keen to acquire a modern aircraft that would allow it to easily integrate into international operations.

With this idea of ​​interoperability, particularly with regard to its Norwegian and Swedish neighbors, Finland opted for the NH90, signing an acquisition contract for 20 aircraft in October 2001. The first aircraft was assembled in Marignane, France, with the remained built in Finland by Patria.

After a four-year delay in delivery, Finland took possession of its first NH90 in November 2008. The 20th and last NH90 was delivered by Patria in June 2015. To save time, the helicopters were put into service in an Initial Operational Configuration (IOC). It wasn’t until 2018, 17 years after the order was placed, that the entire fleet reached “Final Operational Configuration” (FOC). The Mi-8s were donated to museums and schools, with Hungary receiving the two final Mi-8Ts, with all remaining spare parts.

“The Mi-8s were very popular with the crews,” said Lieutenant Colonel Kimmo Nordberg, the former helicopter battalion commander, and now a representative of the Army Commander in the Finnish Defence Command. “These were sturdy, rustic aircraft, with a large interior volume that made it possible to stand up. The large opening, when the clamshell rear end doors were removed, made it possible to drop very large loads. But the NH90 brings us real progress in operational capabilities.”

The Mi-8 had a very basic autopilot, and was not easy to fly. The NH90 is a different breed altogether. Its modern automatic flight-control system allows the pilot to look outside of the cockpit and concentrate on the mission. With Finland’s harsh weather, the NH90’s all-weather flight capabilities are particularly appreciated.

“The Mi-8s were not compatible with the use of night vision goggles [NVGs], whereas it is something very common with the NH90 — either with the TopOwl helmet, or with traditional NVGs, which fare slightly better with a snow-covered ground, snowfalls and the darkest nights,” said Nordberg. “With its piloting aids, its navigation FLIR and the HELLAS obstacle avoidance system, the NH90 allows us to fly even lower and with better margins of safety thanks to its powerful engine.”

The Mi-8 routinely carried around 20 soldiers. The NH90 can only take about 15 in anti-crash seats. But this figure can rise to 20 in the “seat out” configuration used by the special forces, when all the seats are removed from the cabin and the men strap directly on the floor.

The rear ramp is commonly used to load and unload skidoos. To facilitate airdrops, the Finns are also keen to fly without the ramp and rear doors, as they previously did with the Mi-8s. “Flying without the ramp, with a large opening at the rear of the fuselage, is not a problem,” said Nordberg. “It may not have been planned initially, but we tested the setup and it worked well. You just have to make a few adjustments to the speeds and angle of attack of the aircraft.”

The Finnish NH90s chose the 7.62 mm Dillon 134 miniguns as a self-defense weapon. The MG3 machine guns, also in 7.62 caliber, proved unsuitable for this role, with the less powerful ammunition being more sensitive to rotor downwash. “We studied the M3 12.7 mm machine gun, but its rate of fire seemed insufficient to us,” said Nordberg. “We are also experimenting the Barrett 12.7 mm heavy sniper rifle from the helicopter, and may use it in the future. We are not interested in the 20 mm door mounted cannon, but we are still looking towards the use of powerful axial armaments.”

The Finnish air force is responsible for the basic training of future pilots, which is done with 40 flight hours in a light fixed-wing aircraft. Three or four pilots are directed towards helicopters each year, and after an additional 60 hours of flight they join Utti and begin their MD 500 instruction.

As they progress in their piloting skills, the young pilots undergo officer training at the military academy. Seven years may therefore elapse between their initial engagement and their qualification as an operational pilot. The suitable candidates are then directed to the NH90, which they first join as co-pilot. After three or four years of experience, they can become aircraft commander with a qualification initially only for the simplest missions. Then comes a qualification for all missions, followed by an air mission commander (AMC) qualification. An air mission commander is capable of conducting a complex mission simultaneously involving several helicopters and planes. Regular training is done with the air force’s F/A-18 Hornets.

An ongoing program is set to modify the MD 500 fleet with the replacement of old instruments with a multifunction display. At the same time, the cockpits of the three old versions of MD 500 will be changed to become NVG-compatible, and after this upgrade, the whole fleet will be NVG-compatible. The helicopters will also receive a new encrypted radio installation and datalink.

A long warm up

Beside its military missions, support for civilian authorities is part of the unit’s secondary role. Firefighting is carried out using the Bambi Bucket (with a capacity of 1.5 tonnes of water), previously in service on the Mi-8s and modified for use with the NH90.

The helicopters are also used in support of police operations and for rescue missions on land or at sea. In the latter case, it is the Super Puma of the border guards who are on the front line from their bases in Turku, Helsinki and Rovaniemi. But the NH90s can be called in as reinforcements at sea, day or night. The speed and range of the aircraft is a major benefit, with the ability to take off from Kouvola and reach northern Finland without refuelling.

However, the NH90 is not perfect — starting perhaps with a certain lack of hardiness. The Mi-8, for example, had been designed by people with a good knowledge of extreme cold. “Starting up the NH90 is sometimes complicated in very cold weather,” said Nordberg. “If we leave the helicopter exposed to the outdoors overnight in -40 C [-40 F] — and these are temperatures we sometimes encounter — it takes an hour to get it going in the morning, with a long warm-up. The Mi-8 took only 15 minutes. . . . However, I must admit that the NH90 does very well in flight in the most severe icing conditions.”

Aircraft maintenance was the subject of vigorous criticism during the type’s first years of service. In 2014, the availability was less than 20 percent. The numbers improved slowly thereafter, and now fluctuates around 40 percent.

“When we bought the NH90, the manufacturer promised us a requirement for three hours of maintenance per hour of flight,” said Nordberg. “The reality is that the need was closer to 30 man hours per flight hour.” To regain control, the Finns are now working on adapting maintenance programs that are now defined by calendar deadlines. There is no doubt that it would be more profitable to carry out maintenance according to actual wear, which would make it possible to follow simpler and less burdensome maintenance plans.

This is a must, because things are getting serious in Europe. After several decades of political balance between East and West, Finland has officially joined Nato. This is a considerable geopolitical shift, which once again places the country of only 5.5 million inhabitants on the front line with Russia. In this context, the choice of the NH90, developed in response to Nato requirements for a battlefield helicopter, takes on a new relevance — and one that was probably not been envisaged when the aircraft was selected by the Finns over 20 years ago.

The post A look at the only helicopter battalion in Finland — Nato’s newest member appeared first on Vertical Mag.

Hirschberg is staying on at VFS as director of strategy, and will continue to provide his full support to the new, carefully chosen executive director, aerospace engineer Angelo Collins, who takes over in June.

Before taking the helm at VFS in 2011, Hirschberg was himself a principal aerospace engineer at Centra Technology — now part of Amentum — for more than a decade. During that time, he also served as managing editor of VFS’s Vertiflite magazine. Prior to that, Hirschberg worked in the Joint Strike Fight Program office, supporting the development of the X-32 and X-35 vertical flight propulsion systems.

But as many readers know, VFS didn’t actually exist when Hirschberg arrived. The organization at that point was called the American Helicopter Society (AHS), founded in 1943. Not long after he took the reins, however, Hirschberg saw a growing need to publicly and internally transform AHS to VFS — because a true industry revolution was coming.

“In 2013, we saw there was a confluence of technology, funding and regulations happening that would eventually give birth to a new type of aircraft: the eVTOL,” he said. “We started covering it in the magazine. Mark Moore, then at NASA, was the first to tell me about the coming eVTOL revolution and was very supportive in the early years. He was instrumental in AHS becoming VFS and the whole the industry-wide movement. In 2014, I started a major initiative, the world’s first conference on eVTOL.”

(Collins was actually the administrative chair of that first event, which Hirschberg later evolved into VFS’s annual Electric VTOL Symposium. It’s still the largest eVTOL event in the world, with 500-plus attendees welcomed at the one held in January 2023. VFS also hosts the longest-running vertical flight technical conference in the world, the annual Forum and Technology Display.) 

By 2016, Hirschberg had launched the first eVTOL newsletter, by 2017, the first eVTOL website, and by 2018, the first eVTOL short course. He also started VFS hydrogen-electric working groups in 2020, and VFS held the first hydrogen-electric conference in North America in 2022.

“There had been one person at that very first eVTOL Symposium in 2014 who talked about hydrogen, and now nine years later, we see it really taking off as a huge benefit to support the development of vertical flight,” Hirschberg said. “Hydrogen fuel cells solve the energy density needed for vertical takeoff and landing, and can provide electricity as well. We are very excited to be at the forefront of support for this technology.”

Hirschberg also conceived of and created the Air Mobility Council, an informal, ad hoc way for non-profits working to support advanced air mobility (AAM) to better coordinate and collaborate. Its first action was in 2019, a letter to the Trump Administration supporting eVTOL, signed by 10 associations. VFS has since supported a number of executive branch and legislative initiatives to help advance AAM. 

And as the eVTOL tsunami swept over the aerospace world, VFS experienced record growth. During 2021 alone, it welcomed 36 new companies and 550 new individual members.

“Since 2014, our corporate membership increased from about 70 to more than 185 today, while our individual members increased from 5,500 to 6,500 over the same period,” Hirschberg reported. “When I arrived, AHS needed work to achieve financial health and stability. And as VFS, I have achieved that. We are a member-based organization and as more people and companies join, the more good things we can do.”

Beyond eVTOL, Hirschberg talked to Vertical about his other major areas of achievement during his tenure.

Military rotorcraft and safety

“We helped moved Future Vertical Lift from a Congressional tasking of the Pentagon to a contract award for the world’s most advanced rotorcraft,” he reported. “You can read about our early and long-term advocacy at www.vtol.org/fvl.”

With partner associations — Helicopter Association International (HAI), General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) and Aircraft Electronics Association (AEA) — Hirschberg and his colleagues also advocated for the approval of single-engine instrument flight rules (IFR) helicopter operations, beginning with developing and supporting a white paper in 2014.

“I led a critical in-person meeting in 2017 that helped industry and FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] come to an understanding,” Hirschberg said. “This resulted in the FAA approving the Leonardo TH-119 and Bell 407GXi in 2019, with other single-engine helicopters now seeking IFR approval [see https://vtol.org/se-ifr]. I also proposed the idea of creating working groups under the Vertical Aviation Safety Team [VAST], and co-lead the Technology Working Group with my FAA co-chair, Cliff Johnson.”   

Noise

Hirschberg alsohelped raise the visibility of helicopter noise reduction within the FAA and NASA, which resulted in the funding of joint NASA-FAA-Volpe-Army flight testing and improved acoustic modeling.

“I conceived of the idea of iFlyQuiet, and advocated to raise the visibility of Fly Neighborly procedures to reduce the impact of helicopter noise on affected communities,” Hirschberg said. “We also funded and supported development of eVTOL acoustic testing procedures.” 

Education

Hirschberg noted that as an educational, charitable organization created to help those working in the community, individual VFS members are in industry, academia (students, faculty and researchers) and government agencies worldwide. To support the industry, under his leadership, VFS created and expanded several programs for educating today’s and tomorrow’s workforce.

This includes expanding the VFS annual Student Design Competition, adding an annual student drone Design-Build-Vertical Flight competition, and a pre-college outreach initiative, as well as increasing annual scholarships from $35,000 in 2011 to $100,000 every year since 2019.

“We now have hundreds of hours of webinars and other online educational offerings,” Hirschberg said. “We also now have a robust online presence with extensive offerings on Facebook, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Twitter and YouTube.

Workforce

In 2019, Hirschberg saw the growing potential for the dire shortage of engineers for military rotorcraft and civil VTOL aircraft — and took action.

In 2020, VFS launched the Future Vertical Workforce initiative to raise the visibility of this critical need.

“I expanded this to include inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA) in 2021, with our DiversiFlite initiatives — one of which is our DiversiFlite Scholars program to encourage students at federally recognized minority-serving institutions to consider careers in vertical flight,” Hirschberg said.

Reflections and hopes

Hirschberg calls his journey as leader at VFS “amazing.”

“I’ve helped transform the vertical flight industry and it has transformed me,” he shared. “I stay awake working long into the night because of our inspiring members. Recently, I’ve been overwhelmed by the tremendous outpouring of gratitude, and hearing how I have affected people’s lives, their businesses, the industry. In the latest [March/April] issue of VFS’s Vertiflite magazine, there are a lot of comments from members in the Letters section that really moved me. That kind of warm-hearted support from our members has been a major motivational factor all the way along. It’s been particularly wonderful to hear from VFS members who were students about how I made such an impact on them.”

Looking ahead, Hirschberg added that building a new eVTOL sector in the industry requires creativity and hard work, but it also simply requires more human beings.

“I’ve really tried to make VFS more inclusive because of that huge need for more people,” he noted. “We have to transform the workforce as we transform the industry. We need people from all walks — pilots, engineers, maintainers, marketing, advertising, regulation — and we need to bring people in from robotics, software engineering, automotive, and so on. We need to make vertical flight more welcoming and inclusive. Part of that is diversity. Aerospace has not been particularly diverse, but companies are realizing they need to spread the net farther to access the most creative problem solvers.”

Hirschberg said the eVTOL industry started as a twinkle in the eye of a few people 10 years ago to become thousands of bright lights today — going from concepts to aircraft that have already made hundreds or thousands of flights.

“In the next 18 to 24 months, we will see them in service,” he said. “It’s incredible to be part of that and tremendously satisfying. eVTOL has also gone from being limited to a few functions to so many possibilities besides passenger transport: cargo, medical, emergencies, military and more.”   

Hirschberg concluded that “it has been the honor of my professional career to lead VFS. I have poured everything I could into building it and I am confident that Angelo will provide excellent leadership for VFS into its next decade. There are amazing days ahead.”

The post Mike Hirschberg reflects on Vertical Flight Society tenure appeared first on Vertical Mag.

Companies like Archer, Lilium, Joby, Vertical Aerospace and Eve Air Mobility all went public in 2021 and early 2022, seeing the benefits of new public funds injected into their programs — albeit not the full amount they were initially expecting.

In June 2021, Canada-based Horizon Aircraft joined that rank, after U.S. company Astro Aerospace acquired the small privately-held eVTOL developer.

“The Astro deal provided us with the capital to jumpstart our half-scale program,” said Brandon Robinson, CEO and founder of Horizon.

Founded in 2013, Horizon initially began working on a prototype design for an amphibious X3 eSTOL aircraft. The company later pivoted to eVTOLs in 2019 “based on investor interest and what was now possible with emerging electric and hybrid-electric technologies,” Robinson said.

That’s when the Cavorite X5 program began, envisioned to become a hybrid-electric VTOL intended for long-range regional air mobility trips and other traditional helicopter missions that don’t require high duration hovers.

But Robinson said it was the acquisition by Astro in 2021 that truly accelerated development work on the Cavorite X5 hybrid eVTOL. Despite having its aircraft design share the attention with Astro’s other Elroy and Alta eVTOL concepts, the Cavorite X5 received the funds it needed to build its half-scale demonstrator.  

“A half-scale is a large enough aircraft to get some very useful aerodynamic data and properly prove the potential of a design that is incredibly unique in a busy market space,” he added.

But in a turn of events that culminated exactly a year later, Horizon cut ties with Astro, separating itself from the U.S. company amidst Astro’s questionable tactics to bolster its image and boost its stocks.

To appease its own investors who still supported the Cavorite X5 program, Horizon bought back most of Astro’s equity in the company “in a mutually acceptable transaction,” Robinson said.

“Overwhelmingly, investors were much more interested in our aircraft,” Robinson said, and the split from Astro in June 2022 “fundamentally came down to an alignment in terms of priorities and business ethics.”

Astro, however, remains a strategic investor in Horizon, retaining a “very small” percentage of its capitalization table, he said.

“We’re much happier now,” Robinson said. “We are once again a Canadian-controlled private corporation with leadership that understands what we’re doing, [and] we have made some truly incredible progress over the last year.”

Horizon designed its Cavorite X5 as a piloted, four-passenger hybrid-electric aircraft, with top speeds of 450 kilometers an hour (250 knots) and a range of 500 kilometers (270 nautical miles). It will have a useful load of 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds).

With those specs, Robinson admitted the Cavorite X5 will be a “power-hungry aircraft” in hover that will need a battery system with high power density. But with a turbogenerator in the aircraft, the Cavorite X5 will be able to recharge its batteries inflight, significantly extending its range compared with all-electric aircraft, the company claims.  

Similar to other winged eVTOL designs, after the aircraft takes off, the Cavorite X5 will fly in traditional airplane mode for 98% of the mission.

“Initially, it’ll be a VFR — visual flight rules — aircraft, but it’ll be set up completely for instrument operations as well,” he said. “Any aircraft that wants to operate practically in a demanding air environment has to be set up for instrument flight operations. For example, all necessary systems will be in place to certify it for flight into known icing conditions.”

In addition to VTOL capabilities, the aircraft will be designed for short and conventional takeoff and landing. For vertical lift, Horizon has considered designing its own integrated electric motor and fan unit.

“We don’t need anything excessively complicated or powerful,” Robinson said. “We’re using commercially available materials and parts for the integrated motor fan unit. And as a plan B, we’ve also identified several commercial off-the-shelf options that will work from an electric motor and controller combination as well.”

Along those same lines, Robinson said the company doesn’t “need any special advances in batteries, [and] we’re targeting hybrid power systems that are already in development or are developed.”

Horizon has spent the last several months carrying out hover tests with its half-scale demonstrator, which measures seven meters (22 feet) in wingspan and weighs close to 225 kg (500 lb). The company recently took the aircraft to the ACE Climatic Wind Tunnel in Oshawa, Ontario, for wind tunnel testing of its ability to transition to forward flight. The testing went “extremely well,” Robinson said.  

Robinson contends that the company currently has enough cash to comfortably fund six months of activity. But in order to reach its goal of building a full-scale technical demonstrator within the next 2.5 years, the company is working to close its series A funding round — discussions with several groups are underway.

Robinson shares that while the company is currently testing a four-passenger hybrid eVTOL, the final aircraft that’ll go for type certification will likely evolve into a slightly larger design that will carry a pilot and six passengers. He believes the larger configuration would make the aircraft more useful in real-world scenarios.

Horizon is targeting type certification with Transport Canada around 2026, and has recently partnered with Cert Center Canada to help quarterback the process.

The post <strong>Thriving as a private eVTOL developer</strong> appeared first on Vertical Mag.

The company, based in Piney Flats, Tennessee, first opened its doors in 1979 as the accessory sales side of Edwards and Associates, a two-year-old company focused on Bell 206 refurbishment and sales. Aeronautical Accessories provided two immediate benefits to its sister company. First, it offered a direct line to key aftermarket aircraft equipment for the Bell 206 line that enhanced Edwards’ offerings. It also created an opportunity to bring new accessories to market or expand their availability by purchasing smaller aftermarket manufacturing companies and supplemental type certificates (STCs).

One of the first products Aeronautical Accessories sold — and continues to sell to this day — was Bristol Aerospace’s (now Magellan Aerospace’s) revolutionary Wire Strike Protection System (WSPS) for the Bell 206 line. Long-time attendees of HAI Heli-Expo will remember the company’s large display with a swing boom that activated every so often and demonstrated the cutting power of the system on horizontally strung cables. The WSPS proved to be a major success, with more than 20,000 sales to date across most helicopter makes and models, thanks in no small part to Aeronautical Accessories.

Not long after its founding, Aeronautical Accessories began purchasing STCs to expand its offerings. One of these products was the popular Spacemaker for Bell 206, Bell 407, and Bell OH-58 helicopters. It was the brainchild of two electronic news gathering camera operators, who sought a way to free space in the cabin by carrying extra equipment in the baggage compartment. The Spacemaker – a molded fiberglass accessory that snaps into the baggage compartment — was the result, expanding capacity by 50 percent.

“Edwards and Associates was expanding helicopter refurbishment and then moved into new aircraft customizations, which is where Aeronautical Accessories really played a big role,” said David Galik, general manager of Bell’s Piney Flats facility, where Bell’s Aeronautical Accessories brand is located. “They saw all kinds of opportunities to purchase STCs they saw as having potential of being distributed beyond new helicopters.”

Other early and very successful products included sliding door kits, hoist provision kits, automatic door opener kits, night scanner kits, and hi-vis door conversions to larger windows.

As Aeronautical purchased STCs and identified needs it could fill, it also worked toward creating accessories it knew it could market. The company initially partnered with a boat manufacturer to help set up a fiberglass design, engineering, and manufacturing business: Aeronautical Plastics.

“You know those moving companies that are two guys and a truck? That’s what we were, two guys and a machine,” says 39-year employee Allen Tate, one of Aeronautical’s fabricators. “When we started, it was just one engineer and one draftsman drawing all the drawings by hand. We would make our patterns and take them over to the boat manufacturer to create fiberglass tools, then bring them back and mount them on boxes and run out parts. That first year was all about tooling set up, so by the end of it we had a complete set of windows and interior plastic for the Bell 206A and B models we could take to HAI [Heli-Expo].”

Aeronautical Accessories also grew through acquiring companies. In 1990, the company purchased Heli Plex Inc. out of Hurst, Texas, truly expanding the company with a whole catalog of accessories for different helicopters. The purchase also opened the door to military contracts.

Bell Takes Notice

By the mid-1990s, Edwards and its scrappy set of companies, which included a third company, Rotor Blades Inc., had developed a strong reputation and built a number of relationships. Edwards was an FAA Repair Station and a Bell Customer Service Facility. Its refurbishments and customizations were supported by Aeronautical Accessories, and that company’s products were either options or standard on many new Bell aircraft.

In 1999, Bell and Textron purchased Edwards and its companies, including Aeronautical Accessories. When announcing the acquisition, then-Bell CEO Terry Stinson recognized how the companies had partnered with Bell for more than 20 years as both the premier supplier of customization kits and accessories to Bell customers, as well as a member of Bell’s family of worldwide customer service centers.

“Bringing the manufacture and sale of customization kits and accessories in-house allows Bell to offer these products and services directly to our customers,” Stinson said at the time. “In addition, Edwards & Associates’ strength in the used helicopter market, where the ratio of used to new helicopter sales is currently five to one, extends our direct after-market sales opportunities.”

While all of Edwards’ companies were acquired by Bell, only one kept its name. While now considered a Bell brand, Aeronautical Accessories operates under its original name as the accessory arm of Bell.

The acquisition opened a number of doors for Aeronautical Accessories. In addition to an infusion of capital to develop products and add buildings to its Piney Flats location, it also gave Bell and Aeronautical Accessories engineers direct access to each other. This allowed them to partner on aftermarket accessories for existing aircraft at very competitive rates, and also develop accessories for aircraft under development to ensure customized products would be available when the new aircraft came to market.

“Now we have a truly symbiotic relationship that gives Aeronautical an edge in the marketplace,” said Galik. “We are embedded on site with Bell’s planning, engineering, customizing, maintenance, repair, and overhaul teams, giving Aeronautical access to a regular flow of customers.”

This relationship has exceptional benefits for customers. For example, not too long ago, a customer in his 90s bought a Bell 505 on high skid gear. He made an offhand comment to the maintenance team while in Piney Flats that it was tough for him to climb up into the aircraft.

The Aeronautical engineering team jumped into action. Within a couple of weeks, the engineering team had developed and tested a removable four-step solution called the 505 External Passenger Step. Able to connect to the pilot or co-pilot side of the aircraft, the step allows someone to easily climb into the aircraft, then remove the step and store it before flight.

“This is a real example of this symbiotic relationship and why Bell was interested in Aeronautical,” Galik says. “There is nowhere that I know of in the industry that has this scale of customer exposure, interaction, and service with an engineering prototyping manufacturing business behind it. It’s a really powerful way to come up with, refine, and launch new products into the marketplace.”

Leaders within the Aeronautical Accessories brand also attribute the survival of the company’s name to its exceptionally high level of customer service. Sales representatives travel the globe visiting with customers, going the extra mile to support them.

“Visit after visit, our customers are really complimentary of Aeronautical, how we always have inventory on the shelf, more than any other aftermarket provider, and that we just have top notch customer service,” said Jennifer Lunceford, director of aftermarket sales at Bell. “At Aeronautical, there is always ‘their person’ that is available 24/7 to answer questions. They have our cell phone numbers and we answer email at all hours.”

Customer service extends beyond responding to needs for parts. Just as they did for the Bell 505 owner, Aeronautical helps solve customer challenges when it can by partnering with them directly.

Life Flight Network’s Bell 429 door access is one example. The helicopter EMS operator found access to the cabin limited with the current automatic door openers on the front passenger doors. The company asked Bell if it was possible to design and install a kit configuration that would open those doors wider to allow for better access and patient loading.

Bell’s Aeronautical Accessories engineering team brainstormed solutions and designed protypes. The first viable solution they shared with Life Flight was not financially feasible for the whole fleet. The engineers took the customer feedback and made changes, eventually developing a cost-effective passenger door extender kit. The kit relocates the helicopter’s floor bracket, creating a longer door strut to overextend the forward door from 90 degrees to roughly 120 degrees.

Bell’s relationship and eventual ownership of Aeronautical has also allowed the OEM to provide more complete aircraft right off the line. Many Aeronautical products, like automatic door openers, high skid gear, skid shoes, the company’s new polycarbonate windshields, and the like are offered either as an option or standard equipment on new aircraft.

“The Bell 505 was designed to have a lot more of the configuration complete through the build process on the manufacturing line,” Galik said. “Especially for the 505, there is little customization needed now, as we can do most of it on the line with Aeronautical products.”

Today and Beyond

Aeronautical Accessories continues to support customizations, particularly for law enforcement, parapublic agencies, air medical, and VIP operations. These include modifications for special equipment and operations, including search-and-rescue (SAR).

One of Aeronautical’s largest engineering support projects in the last decade was a seven-ship Bell 429 completion for the Swedish National Police. Its customization package included equipment for police work, air medical, and SAR. Each aircraft was fully loaded with lights, a camera, police radios, a litter, hoist, and more.

“These helicopters were everything in one,” Galik explained. “It was a massive integration and build, requiring specialized customization. It took longer to do the customization than it took to build the aircraft. The 429 is an amazing aircraft capable of doing so much. It’s mind blowing. Knowing its potential, it is very satisfying that Aeronautical could support this build and see it be successful in the field.”

Today Aeronautical Accessories owns more than 370 STCs. Given its ownership, the company’s focus is mainly on Bell aircraft, both creating and supplying aftermarket products and developing new solutions for current and future aircraft. That said, its many STCs for accessories that support other OEMs are not going anywhere.

“Most of our future work will be for Bell, but ‘most’ is the keyword there,” Galik said. “We have some work for other OEMs in the pipeline I’m not ready to release, but there are definitely products similar to what we use on Bell that belong on other aircraft. We will look to supplying for other makes if that makes sense for our customers and it is what they want. It goes hand in hand with our entrepreneurial spirit that goes all the way back to the beginning.”

The post Symbiotic support: Aeronautical Accessories appeared first on Vertical Mag.

As the noise of the engine and the rotor wash makes communication nearly impossible, they spring into action. Hands wave precise signals as over half a ton of steel framing floats down between the trees, suspended 200 feet below the helicopter by a line that hangs perfectly vertically.

Without as much as a sway, the frame glides into place on top of a mass of steel beams and joists, soon to be a mining exploration drill rig. A subtle hand-wave and it lifts barely six inches and settles again, perfectly aligned. And as the noise and wind of the rotors fade, the men clamber back over the machine to prepare for the next delivery courtesy of Heli SGI.

In the city of Denpasar on the island of Bali, the hustle and bustle of the markets and mopeds seems a world away from the jungle clearing. The other side of a country comprised of 17,000 islands and spanning three time zones, they might as well be. But it is here that Heli SGI is based.

Having begun as the first helicopter operator servicing the substantial tourism market here, it has since branched out.

Krisna Dewi is the commercial manager at Heli SGI. She started with them in 2006. “We started as Air Bali with just one Bell 206,” she explained. “Then we started to bring in LongRanger and 407 helicopters.”

As Indonesia’s most popular tourism destination, Bali was an ideal location. But its position in the country’s center also made it attractive as the base for much broader-reaching operations.

“We have always done tourism flights,” said Dewi. “And we began expanding into the mining operation in 2011.”

That expansion was enabled by investment from a joint Australian and Balinese-Indonesian company that made them co-owners, and also brought prior experience in the mining industry to Heli SGI.

“The new investor already owned other companies involved in mining,” said Dewi. “So we combined their experience with our experience operating here in Indonesia.”

The Air Bali name remained, now part of Heli SGI and serving as the company’s tourism arm, while Heli SGI focused on gaining a foothold in the mining industry. It was to be a rocky climb.

Numbers in safety

Indonesia is rich in a variety of minerals, many of which are critical to battery technology that is itself key to the green energy revolution. However, in 2014 the Indonesian government took steps aimed at preventing all the profits from their minerals from flowing overseas, and this generated considerable uncertainty.

With a single helicopter flying just 60 hours a month, Heli SGI was in a fight for survival. Dewi was serving in a business development role at the time, but had a vision of safety and quality forming the backbone of the company’s offer, and bidding for contracts with clients that understood the value of this approach. She would later be honored by Helicopter Association International with a Salute to Excellence Safety Award, but at the time, the strategy was a huge risk. Nevertheless, contracts came. By 2021, Heli SGI was flying between 600 and 800 hours a month and Dewi had been promoted to commercial manager.

“Things got tough,” she said, “but the company improved. We survived and this is where we are now, with nine helicopters supporting blue-chip mining corporations in Indonesia.”

François Lassale joined Heli SGI as the CEO after this period, bringing with him a background in offshore helicopter and operations management. He was very clear about just how much of a challenge Dewi and her colleagues had overcome.

“Those contracts were hard fought and hard won,” he said. “There are unique challenges operating in Indonesia. You are bidding against competition who operate in different ways to you and therefore don’t have the same overheads.”

Lassale’s background emphasizes safety, and this has been reinforced starkly since joining the company, with Heli SGI aircraft recovering other crews after accidents.

“I’ve been here a year, and in that time we’ve done three rescues of our competitors,” he said. “We are BARS [Basic Aviation Requirements Standard] gold accredited, and we are one of the very few utility companies in Indonesia that has HUMS [health and usage monitoring system] and FDM [flight data monitoring].

While he shares the company’s passion for safety, Lassale himself admitted he was somewhat unfamiliar with helicopter utility flying when he first arrived.

“When I first got here, I questioned that the crews were only doing five hours a day,” he laughed. “Then I saw what they were doing for those five hours.”

Utility in diversity

At the heart of the Heli SGI mission is mining support, and this involves high-precision sling load flying.

“We put a one-ton load on a postage stamp,” said Lassale. “Get any swing on the load and you’ve potentially got a lot of fingers and hands in the way. Our customers have a very low tolerance for that.”

As carefully as the load must be flown, so too must the helicopter.

“Our guys are flying a 200-foot line in a jungle clearing that isn’t much bigger than the helicopter,” said Lassale. “So, you’re reaching down into the canopy to get the job done.”

Leading the cadre of those getting the job done is chief pilot Munawar Fatoni, whose career in the helicopter industry spans 17 years and began in the military. He has been with Heli SGI for four years.

“Our main challenge is the environment, because we operate in remote areas and in the mountains,” he said. “The weather can change at any moment, and that’s non-negotiable.”

The remoteness and the weather are driven to a great extent by the terrain, which is also severe. “Operation at high altitude affects aircraft performance, and at very high altitude also the pilot’s physical condition,” explained Fatoni. “We provide our pilots with high altitude training, including on the effects of hypoxia.”

Under these conditions, Heli SGI equips its people with everything they can to keep them safe, including oxygen systems. The company has bases around Indonesia, with the furthest being in the Papua region, around 1,240 miles (2,000 kilometers) from Bali and another two which are “only” a two-hour flight away.

“Where our challenge really lies is in the fact that our operations are quite spread apart,” explained Paul Doxey, the chief operating officer at Heli SGI.

An offshore helicopter pilot, Doxey previously ran Bristow Trinidad and was the base manager for one of Bristow Nigeria’s operations, so he is no stranger to having assets at several remote sites. He explained that it came down to selecting the right equipment and the right people.

“It’s essential that we get the right people operating for us, because these operations are quite individual,” he said. “In these helicopters it’s single-pilot operations, so you need someone who has bought into the ethos of the company and is excellent at precision long-line work.”

This alone narrows the potential recruiting pool.

“We are building rigs in which a pilot will fly a half-ton load in and slide that load onto the bolts with very little movement,” explained Doxey. “It’s quite a unique skillset.”

Accordingly, Heli SGI maintains a high bar for new hires, who are required to complete psychometric testing and an airborne evaluation of their long line flying at the company’s own training site in Bali.

“We would expect our pilots to be able to put a load on a 200-foot long line onto a half-meter-by-half-meter [1.5-foot-by-1.5-foot) point without any sway or hesitation,” said Doxey.

Pilots will get plenty of practice slinging loads during “back-to-back” shifts, which allow them to spend as much time back home as in-country, commuting directly to the sites at which they work. This doesn’t afford the company much contact with them, and is something they are looking to change.

“They might not come to Bali because there might be no need for it,” explained Doxey. “Changing that so they are based here allows us to drive our culture, our vision and our values.”

Given the remoteness of its operations, knowing that its pilots have the right skills and values is essential to build trust between the company and its pilots. But both the company and the pilots also have to be able to trust the machines that they operate.

“In Papua, it’s expected that an aircraft that’s doing long line precision flying will operate up to 14,000 feet [4,270 meters],” said Doxey. “Just landing at that altitude can be a challenge, but that’s what our clients expect.”

As with the pilots, the requirements placed on the aircraft narrow the options available.

“Operating in this part of the world, Bell is the better OEM purely based on availability,” said Lassale. “We are the biggest Bell operator in the region.”

Heli SGI’s JetRangers and LongRangers are supplemented by 407s, one of which is an Eagle 407HP. Their medium twin-engine aircraft are a 212 and 412, which are owned by a client and managed by the company. With a Honeywell HTS900 replacing the OEM powerplant, the Eagle 407HP is the natural choice for high altitude work.

“We use the Eagle for many reasons,” said Lassale. “We’ve got it because of reliability and support, but we’ve also got it because of its downwash. You could put a 412 in to do a similar operation, but you’d blow the hut and all the miners away.”

Maintaining confidence

Despite hangars currently being filled with Bell helicopters, and having another two 407GXPs on order, Heli SGI is keeping its options open as it anticipates modernizing its fleet.

“There is nothing in the pipeline to replace the 407,” said Lassale. “It’s a good workhorse that has served us very well, but they’re starting to get a bit long in the tooth.”

The aircraft might not be young, but they come with the benefit of spares availability and a raft of engineering knowledge that only years of operation will get you.

“The aircraft are in great condition, and are subjected to extremely high standards of maintenance,” said Lassale.

Responsible for keeping them that way is technical manager Raymond Denysschen. He may be the self-confessed introvert of the company, but he is very quick to point out what gives Heli SGI its competitive advantage.

“Our maintenance standards are extremely high, evidenced by the minimal amount of downtime we have on-site,” he said.

With spares taking three days to get from the Bali headquarters out to some of Heli SGI’s worksites, the company couldn’t afford it to be any other way. Denysschen explained that’s down to preventative maintenance, experience and high standards.

“With our high utilization of the aircraft, we do a lot of maintenance and we go deep into it,” he said. The company also trains the majority of its engineers directly from graduate school, with 92 percent of the maintenance staff being Indonesians.

“We bring in a lot of graduates, so we don’t have to untrain bad habits,” explained Denysschen. “We are in a unique place to train them in these kind of skills, so when they do go out into the field their skill level is much higher, and in the rare case where we do have a snag onsite, they are capable of fixing the snag quickly.”

This attention to maintenance is part of the bedrock of trust that enables the company to function, as Lassale explained.

“We put a huge amount of emphasis into the maintenance of those aircraft,” he said. “That allows Paul and Raymond and the pilots flying them to go home and sleep soundly at night.”

With a company and a CEO determined to deliver performance on the basis of trust and experience, few opinions can be as valuable as those of Krisna Dewi.

“I’ve been doing this for 16 years and I know a lot of operators here in Indonesia,” she said. “I feel truly blessed to be working with this company, where I have total peace of mind that we are doing things the right way.”

The post Core business: Heli SGI appeared first on Vertical Mag.

In the United States, as the Army has divested Sikorsky UH-60A and L model Black Hawks and Boeing CH-47D Chinooks, these military workhorses have made their way into the civilian world as public use or restricted category aircraft, where they have excelled in firefighting and construction roles. In Canada and elsewhere around the world, the Airbus AS332 Super Puma has become increasingly popular for the same kind of work as it has been phased out of the oil-and-gas market.

All three aircraft types are highly capable and modern by utility helicopter standards, bringing a much-needed refresh to a sector that prizes performance but can rarely pay for the latest tech. Their relative affordability as military or offshore castoffs has enticed many operators who had little or no previous experience with the types, but a deep understanding of firefighting and utility missions.

Now that the sector has had several years of solid experience with the aircraft, Vertical checked in with commercial operators of the UH-60, CH-47 and AS332 to learn how these types are shaking out in terms of real-world performance and operating costs. What we discovered is a market that is still very much in flux, with the aircraft getting rave reviews for their capabilities but many of their long-term operating costs obscured by the prevalence of “green time” — life remaining on components before they need to be replaced or overhauled.

Particularly in the UH-60 world, this has created significant downward pressure on contract rates, posing challenges for anyone who wants to operate the type for the long haul. While the Black Hawk, Chinook and Super Puma are all likely to become lasting fixtures of the utility helicopter industry, it will take more time for the market to incorporate them into a stable equilibrium.

UH-60: The ‘new Huey’

During the 1980s and ’90s, as the Black Hawk replaced the Bell UH-1H Huey in the U.S. Army’s inventory, surplus Hueys flooded the civil market, where they were used and sometimes abused by firefighting and logging operators.

“The joke when I was a kid was the $100,000 Huey: buy a Huey for $100,000, go to work tomorrow,” recalled Timberline Helicopters chief operating officer Brian Jorgenson, who grew up in the helicopter industry. Today, the Huey has an inflation-adjusted parallel in the first generation of Army Black Hawks, which Jorgenson said “seems like the $1 million helicopter right now.”

With the Army transitioning to the latest variant of the Black Hawk, the UH-60M, the first UH-60A models began arriving in the civil world in 2014 through the Program Executive Office for Aviation Black Hawk Exchange and Sales Team Program, or BEST. Aircraft identified as “obsolete” (17 to 25 years old or technologically outdated) are first offered to U.S. federal and state agencies before being put up for sale through the General Services Administration (GSA) auction, which is open to the public.

Since the program was initiated a decade ago, around 500 Black Hawks have been divested and sold to government agencies and civil customers, with UH-60Ls gradually replacing the A models arriving at auction. The program has netted hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds that the Army has applied to procurement of the UH-60M, yielding substantial savings for taxpayers. Meanwhile, a new industry has sprung up to support the UH-60 on the civil side.

Alabama-based Arista Aviation is one of the companies that now specializes in Black Hawk refurbishment and support. According to president Rich Enderle, the company has refurbished around 30 Black Hawks that Arista or its customers have acquired through the BEST Program.

“Once we get the aircraft through from the auction, we do a thorough structural inspection, perform required maintenance and complete all of the calendar inspections,” he said. “The aircraft is stripped all the way down to the bare metal, it’s repainted, and then you install the required mission equipment requested by the customer.”

For firefighting, that could include installation of a new transponder, radios, intercom system, loudhailer, lighting, cargo hook, and fuel reclamation cans. Enderle said these modifications can run from $500,000 up to $800,000, on top of the $1 million or so an operator might pay for the aircraft at auction. While that’s not exactly cheap, it’s still much less than what many smaller, less capable helicopters cost brand-new.

In the U.S., commercial Black Hawks must operate as restricted category aircraft, which means they can only carry essential crewmembers onboard (a limitation that does not apply to public use aircraft operated for public agencies). That means they can’t compete with standard category aircraft for passenger-carrying missions, but are ideally suited for external load work, which also prohibits the presence of nonessential personnel.

Idaho-based Timberline acquired its first UH-60s in late 2014 and has now logged more than 15,000 hours across a fleet of five Black Hawks. Jorgenson is enthusiastic about the type, which he sees as offering a step change in safety and performance over an older generation of rotorcraft without sacrificing anything in durability.

“My personal opinion is it’s the last true utility helicopter that may ever be built, because everything now is plastic and fiberglass and it just doesn’t hold up the way this aircraft does,” Jorgenson said. For the utility world, “this one is such a great aircraft, it’s hard to imagine what designing a new aircraft would gain you,” he said.

Because so many Black Hawks have entered the civil market in recent years, parts for the aircraft are generally plentiful, with most of those scavenged from other surplus airframes. That means that operators don’t yet have to budget for things like transmission upgrades and engine replacements, which can each cost as much as an entire airframe at auction. “Going back to the auction and buying an aircraft if you can get it for the right price is still the way many people are addressing the sustainment of the aircraft,” Enderle said.

Multiple operators who spoke with Vertical said this situation has been driving down rates for the UH-60, as some operators have prioritized cash flow over the long-term sustainability of the platform. Billings Flying Service, based in Montana, is one of the companies that has witnessed this trend. According to president Nick Nenadovic, Billings expects the operating costs for the Black Hawk to increase in the future as the spares pool dries up.

“A potentially detrimental misconception is ‘the UH-60 is the new UH-1,’” Nenadovic wrote in an email to Vertical. “We see parts exponentially more expensive than UH-1 parts, yet the aircraft are being offered at previous decade-old pricing. The UH-60 is truly an incredible aircraft, extremely stable with good performance. Much like the UH-1, it really can take the place of some older platforms in our industry if properly valued and operated.”

CH-47D: Civilian Chinook

This downward pricing pressure is less acute in the CH-47D market, where the supply of aircraft is more limited and the barriers to entry are higher. The U.S. Army has now fully divested its D model Chinooks, which sold at auction for around $2 million to $3.5 million while they were available for a few years starting in 2014.

Like the Black Hawk, the Chinook has won high praise from many utility operators for its outstanding capability and performance.

To maximize the effectiveness of its Chinooks for firefighting, Coulson Group modified the bellies of the aircraft to accommodate its proprietary 3,000-gallon internal tank and a pair of drop doors, overcoming the limitations of the model’s small hook well opening. This year, Coulson-Tan will have three CH-47Ds on contract 24/7/365 as part of the Quick Reaction Force established by Southern California Edison and Orange, Los Angeles, and Ventura counties.

“I would say they exceeded expectations,” said Coulson Group CEO Wayne Coulson, whose British Columbia-based company now operates five of the model through a joint venture with the Tan family, founders of Unical in California. Unical was among the largest single purchasers of UH-60 and CH-47 models, providing the enterprise with a ready supply of spare parts.

“We’ve been able to operate the fleet at the highest availability probably in the world based on the talent pool that we have and the spare parts that we have through the joint venture,” Coulson said.

Although the CH-47D is proving to be a strong performer, the smaller fleet of civilian Chinooks comes with its own challenges in terms of sustainment. California-based PJ Helicopters currently operates 11 UH-60A Black Hawks and recently began flying its first CH-47D, with the aim of eventually standing up three Chinooks for power line construction and firefighting. According to director of operations Dave McCammon, “the 47 community as we’re finding is much, much smaller than the Black Hawk [community]. And just with the numbers, it’s much more difficult to support.”

While Boeing is still cranking out F model Chinooks and supporting legacy operators, defense customers are first in line when it comes to support from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM). McCammon said that some civilian operators are now looking at banding together to increase their buying power. “Boeing is a very large company and they like numbers; they don’t want onesies-twosies,” he explained.

At the same time, many civil operators are investing heavily in developing their internal capabilities for long-term support of the model. That includes Billings Flying Service, which according to Nenadovic has acquired the necessary tooling, inventory, processes, and test equipment to sustain the CH-47 at the depot level.

“It was extremely important to develop the in-house capabilities and we found that the most efficient path is often to manage and perform the work ourselves,” he told Vertical. “The market for civilian CH-47 support is lean, and often the lead times or combination of lead times and pricing are not a good fit for our operation. Using our extensive experience, we have focused on identifying the critical items required to support CH-47 operations, increased our inventory levels, and will add more capabilities where it makes sense.”

Looking to the future, the company anticipates the need to expand into parts manufacturing as some suppliers phases out support for certain items in coming years.

“The parts demand in the civilian market will only continue to increase as these aircraft age. With a complex and challenging global supply chain, spares components pricing has seen significant increases,” Nenadovic wrote, acknowledging that “supporting legacy components and items of obsolescence on the platform will prove challenging.”

Columbia Helicopters, which purchased 11 CH-47D airframes and has chosen to operate three of them, has already developed extensive parts manufacturing and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) capabilities as a longtime operator of and type certificate holder for the Model 234, the commercial, standard category version of the Chinook.

“The transition to the 47 was smooth,” said Santiago Crespo, Columbia’s vice president of growth and strategy, noting that Columbia also provides MRO support for the CH-47 fleets of the U.S. Army and foreign militaries. “Most importantly,” he said, “we had gained tremendous experience in heavy-lift operations on the Columbia Model 234 Multi-Mission Chinook and were able to take that experience around improving the airframe structure and other modifications to the aircraft to make them more reliable.”

Crespo said that Columbia has found the CH-47D to be “a fantastic platform . . . very reliable” and will continue to support the model into the future. As an operator, however, the company does not intend to add any more D models to its active fleet. Instead, it will be focusing on its own types, the 234 and the smaller Columbia Model 107-II Multi-Mission Helicopter. The commercial version of the CH-46 Sea Knight, the 107-II is another proven performer in firefighting and utility operations that has recently been gaining traction as a competitor to the Mil Mi-8/17.

“We really are focusing on our own platforms and growing that fleet, which is standard category . . . which we believe has some additional benefits for our current and future customers,” Crespo said. He pointed out that standard category aircraft are particularly valuable in many international markets, which may not have a framework for restricted category operations or the ability to import former military aircraft.

AS332: A versatile alternative

Standard category certification is also a principal selling point for the AS332, which is in roughly the same weight and performance class as lightweight Black Hawks with enhanced engines. Many of the AS332 L and L1 models entering the utility market come from the offshore sector, where some are still in use even after the later variant of the Super Puma, the H225, was expelled from the oil-and-gas market following a series of main rotor gearbox failures that culminated in a high-profile fatal accident in 2016.

David Rath is CEO of the Oregon-based helicopter operator Precision. His first exposure to the AS332 L1 came in his previous role as president of Evergreen Helicopters, which successfully deployed the model on contracts for personnel transport in Afghanistan. Today, Precision and its partners operate five L1 models on overseas contracts mostly focused on firefighting. Since 2021, Precision and British Columbia’s Coldstream Helicopters, which has a fleet of 10 AS332 L and L1 models, have partnered to meet North American demands.

Rath praised the AS332’s speed, endurance, and hot-and-high performance, which he said allow it to maximize the amount of water delivered per fuel cycle in firefighting operations. But he acknowledged that the UH-60 is a “formidable competitor” in terms of lifting capability, and that “the downward economic pressure is real” when it comes to contract rates for Black Hawks. Operating the standard category AS332 allows Precision to differentiate its service offering for customers who are wary of or unable to use restricted category aircraft.

“When we have to compete simply for an external load construction job, often we’re not the lowest cost,” he said. “That’s why we think we made the right choice of not competing in the UH-60 world 365 days out of the year, meaning that we find a marketplace where somebody would pay for the benefit of having a standard category multi-mission aircraft.”

Rath appreciates the fact that the AS332 is supported by the original OEM and has found value in Safran’s Support-By-the-Hour programs for the aircraft’s Makila engines. But he acknowledged that parts and MRO options are limited compared to the robust aftermarkets that exist for other models. “That just means you have to be resourceful and create your own internal capability as well. So you choose where you’re going to vertically integrate your own business model versus waiting on the manufacturer to support,” he said.

Over in Europe, Heli Austria has been investing heavily in the AS332 L and L1 since adding the first Super Pumas to its fleet in 2016. The company currently operates six AS332s, with plans to return two more to service in 2023. Heli Austria also recently sold two aircraft to Switzerland’s Lions Air Group for a firefighting joint venture.

Heli Austria’s extensive design and maintenance capabilities allowed it to refurbish its Super Pumas in-house, stripping them of excess weight and adding new avionics. It worked with the Italian design organization TPS Group to obtain a supplemental type certificate (STC) for weight-saving “baby sponsons” that replace the original housings for the rear landing gear, and with VIH Aerospace in Canada on new, more cost-effective bubble doors for both pilots.

Heli Austria also partnered with Helitak on a 4,250-liter (1,120-U.S. gallon) underbelly water tank for the Super Puma, which was certified by the Federal Aviation Administration in 2022 and is waiting on validation from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. Now, Heli Austria is exploring further performance enhancements to the model through aerodynamic modifications and redesigned blade tips, as well as lithium-ion replacements for the main and backup batteries.

“There were a lot of investments, but we were very lucky that we got some deals with spares packages,” Heli Austria CEO Roy Knaus told Vertical by email. “We put the spares back to service through MRO shops and sell them and use that money for further technical developments.”

Looking to the future, Knaus expects the main rotor gearbox, main rotor head, and engines to be the biggest cost drivers for the model. “It is different from operating [Airbus] H125s or Bell mediums where you have a lot of shops and parts you can choose from,” he noted. “For the 332 you have to be in good control of your part needs and to have slots with the MROs for your requirements. We are preparing that we have sent a lot of parts out for overhaul and conditional inspections to have everything we need.”

Nevertheless, he remains enthusiastic about the platform and its long-term prospects. Ultimately, he believes the AS332 will be the ideal aircraft for introducing Europe to nighttime aerial firefighting, something that is already being done with Black Hawks, Chinooks, and other helicopter models in the U.S.

“The next step for us is night firefighting and there are still some hurdles to overcome,” he wrote, noting that the use of night vision imaging systems in firefighting operations is not addressed or envisioned in EASA regulations. “But we think we will find a solution for it on a national level — not for all countries, but the political pressure will become huge over the next years.”

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