Orange County Fire Authority, in partnership with Southern California Edison and Coulson Aviation, launched a new nighttime aerial firefighting program. The “Next Generation Aerial Operations Based Pilot Program” is comprised of two helicopters. The first one (S-61) has the capacity of carrying 1,000 gallons and can fill its tank at night while hovering over a […]
Colorado Army National Guard’s 2nd Brigade 135th General Support Aviation Battalion, based at Buckley Air Force Base, Aurora, Colorado, have recently hosted a wildland fire training conference in conjunction with the U.S. Forest Service and local and state partners in preparation for wildfire season. Emergency Management Assistance Compact partners Nebraska National Guard and Kansas National […]
Viking Air Limited of Victoria, British Columbia has launched an Avionics Upgrade Program (AUP) for the Canadair CL-215T and CL-415 fleet of aerial firefighting aircraft. The program will incorporate modernized technologies in communications, navigation, surveillance, and air-traffic management functionality in an integrated platform featuring the Collins Aerospace Pro Line Fusion avionics suite. To face challenges […]
Coulson Aviation USA, a member of the Coulson Group, and Unical Air, a new unit of the Unical Group of Companies, have joined forces to create a heavy lift helicopter joint venture company that will build and operate Boeing CH-47 and Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk aircraft for aerial firefighting and other markets. Examples of each model are being displayed […]
SEI Industries is expanding its offering at this week’s Heli-Expo to include, for the first time at the event, products from the Remote Site division. Although, SEI is widely recognized for its Aerial Firefighting division due to the success of the BAMBI Bucket, SEI engineers have also designed and manufacture a complete line of collapsible […]
SEI Industries is best know for its invention of the world-famous BAMBI Bucket that now services 95% of the world’s aerial firefighting water bucket market. As the aerial firefighting product line evolves, SEI engineers continue to make improvements to the existing products based on feedback from customers in the field. The BAMBI MAX enhanced valve […]
Bristow Group has announced they have mutually agreed with Columbia Helicopters to terminate Bristow’s agreement to acquire Columbia. In connection with the termination, Bristow has paid $20 million to Columbia. Bristow, Columbia and Columbia’s shareholders have agreed to release each other from all claims in connection with the purchase agreement and the related transactions. Since the announcement […]
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) has released images of their first Sikorsky S-70i Black Hawk, including the one seen here. The helicopter has been built at the manufacturer’s plant at Mielec in Poland, and has been transferred to the United Rotorcraft facility for conversion to Firehawk standard. This primarily requires the […]
The two night fire suppression helicopters from Ballarat and Mangalore were sent to the Rosedale fire in Gippsland and operated for a few hours overnight within a defined area of 500 hectares. Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said the helicopters were deployed as part of the continuing trial into night fire suppression operations in Victoria. […]
A video posted on YouTube just before Christmas provides more information than ever before on Viking Air’s plans for a new model to succeed the CL415 scooping air tanker. The upper parts of of the firefighting tanks will be enlarged to increase capacity by 15% to 7000 litres. The video is clearly an official media […]
