Eastern Montana Helitack has an exclusive use, 90 day contract on a Bell 206L-4 Longranger from Sky Aviation out of Worland, Wyoming. What does that all mean? Well the Bell 206L-4 is classified as a light helicopter, meaning that it is small, has a limited seating capacity, relatively low payload, and as a result, is relatively inexpensive. While many state and county agencies own their aircraft, most aircraft used by the federal agencies involved in fire are leased on one of about six types of contracts. An exclusive use contract means that the aircraft is used exclusively by the contracting agency for the specified period of time in the contract. This can be the most expensive type of contract but it means that the ship will always be there when you need it and it allows the crew to get to know the aircraft and the pilot that they will be working with for the whole summer.An interesting bit of trivia: you see that white spike on top of the helicopter and the black spike down below the nose?
That is the "wire strike protection." Wires like electrical and telephone lines provide an obvious threat to helicopters, and in the event the helicopter hits a wire, the nose will (hopefully) deflect it into one of these two devices which have sharp blades at their bases and are designed to cut the wire. Evidently a helicopter hit an old telegraph line a couple of years ago and they worked like a charm. This family of helicopters from Bell has been around a long time and is widely used by EMS, law enforcement and news agencies in addition to fire and has an excellent reputation for reliability.
1 comment:
in other words- it's very safe! right?
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