Kris Kirkland (middle) stands with his helitack crew in front of a UH-1H Huey and an Eagle Single helicopter at Minden-Tahoe Airport. Retired as a lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard, he has flown (among others) the Bell OH-58 Kiowa, Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk and Boeing CH-47 Chinook in Afghanistan. With over 5,200 flying hours, he now is the NDF’s Aviation Services officer / program manager-Aviation.
Future plans
Having been in service for many decades, the end is drawing near for the venerable UH-1H as spare parts are increasingly difficult to obtain and airframes are entering the end of their lifespan. “Our intention initially was to outfit the fleet for consistency and commonality with the Eagle Single, but now I think our intent is to replace the legacy Hueys with the Bell 205A1++ aircraft,” Kirkland says. “We did get a quote from Eagle Copters Ltd. last year for a 205A1++, which is really no different, other than that the 205 was built as a single-engine helicopter, but there are also different charts built for the 205A1++ versus the charts that had been built for the Eagle
Single, so for us the 205A1++ will perform better than the Eagle Single. We also considered acquiring the Leonardo AW139, but it was $12 million while the 205A1++ was only $4.5 million. Also the AW139 is a four-bladed helicopter and that wouldn’t fit in the present hangar if we aim for maintaining four aircraft. Two aircraft would have to sit outside.”
Another one of Kirkland’s strategic long-term goals is to initiate a small UAS program to see hotspots, map seeding plots, and do prescribed back-burns with ethylene glycol balls that the drones can drop. “I think that is the way it will be going more and more,” Kirkland says. “The NDF will probably start implementing this UAS program within the next two years.”
rotorpro.com 73
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82
