Tag Archives: sikorsky

Helijet Operations in Vancouver Harbour

Our long weekend in Vancouver did include some slightly gloomy weather.  When the conditions were not enticing for wandering around the city, I hopped in the car to head down to the heliport on the waterfront. Despite having been to Vancouver many times, I had never actually got down to the heliport itself.  It was really easy to get to from our hotel and the car was welcome in the crummy conditions.

Weekend traffic levels are lower than during the week but there is traffic to Nanaimo and Victoria so that helps a little.  I was happy to sit around for a while and get some shots.  I’m sure a busy weekday would be better and having some slightly nicer weather wouldn’t hurt.  I did figure that, since I had got some shots, a little video might be worth a shot.  I was able to get some arrival and departure video so edited that together in the piece below.  Helijet’s S-76s are nice looking airframes.  I would love to take a trip with them some time – I just assume the luggage allowances are not great!

Checking Out The Northwest Helicopters’ Black Hawk

With the firefighting helicopters gathering at Snohomish to cover the local fire activity, I was able to chat to the crews a little while they waited to see what was to come.  Northwest Helicopters had brought in a Black Hawk to support the fire if needed.  It was a 1984 build airframe and had been painted in a blue scheme.  The guys were complaining about the paint, though.  It was a matte finish and the soot from the exhausts was discoloring the surface and was, apparently, impossible to clean up.  The rest of the airframe looked fine for something that is nearly 40 years old.

They had a Bambi bucket with them for the firefighting side of things and were quite happy for me to check out the interior of the cockpit.  Having shot their arrival, it was a shame that the visibility was so bad that they could not do what they had come to do and were stuck on the ground while I was there.  A nice pair of guys to chat with, though, and I appreciate the time and access that they gave.

Perfect Skycrane Timing

One of the last legs of the trip Mark and I took was to Medford for an overnight before heading home.  Medford is also home to Erickson Aircrane’s operations and I had intended to swing by to see if there was anything to see there.  As we drove towards the airport, an S-64 was flying downwind.  It wasn’t apparent whether it was heading away or arriving.  However, I knew the route to their parking lot so we made a rapid move there just as the helo turned on to approach.

It made a stately descent and then taxied in.  We were able to shoot through the fence as it did so without any problem – if you ignore the fact that the temperature was 103F and getting out of an air conditioned car was quite a shock.  They taxied in and shut down and we rapidly retreated to the cool of the car.  We really couldn’t have timed the arrival any better!

Is This The End For The S-76?

I was rather sad to read that Sikorsky is shuttering production of the S-76 helicopter.  The design first flew over 40 years ago but it has gone through a number of upgrades over the years.  It is a sleek looking machine and quite a bit larger than it might initially appear.  My first encounter with one was on the school fields of my high school when it was parked after bringing some people in for Cowes Week.  I got to chat with the pilot for a while.  No camera in those days, though.

When I worked in London, they had replaced the Queens Flight Wessex airframes with a pair of S-76s in a maroon color and they would often fly past our building as they landed at the palace.  I have had various other times when I have seen them since but not a huge number.  The most recent version is the S-76D which replaced the S-76C++ (catchy name, huh?).  It has not sold particularly well and the development program was rather protracted.  Without many customers, Sikorsky has called time for now.  Whether it gets resurrected in the future – perhaps with production at their facility in Poland – we shall see.

A Cold And Damp Amazon Delivery Job

The forecast for the day of the Amazon lift was not ideal.  It was going to be cold and rainy.  Just what you want for photographing something and even better when the helicopter you are most interested in is grey!  Oh well, what can you do?  Things were scheduled to kick off at 7am so I headed up to Arlington early to be ready.

Naturally, like many things aviation related, it didn’t start on time.  I suspect there were other things that they had as part of the plan, but we weren’t privy to that so were just waiting for a helicopter to lift off.  It was not very cold, but it was definitely cold enough and damp.  I should have dressed warmer and trying to get shots at a low shutter speed when you are shivering is not ideal.

One advantage of a crummy weather day is that you can roll the shutter speed right down and not have silly apertures.  That means less need for dust spotting later!  On the 100-400, I would have just used a polarizer, but I don’t have one for the 500 so was okay with shooting that at the speeds I wanted to try for.

The Astar was the first to lift.  The initial lifts were very slow, but things improved a little as the crews on the roof got into the groove.  The Astar was obviously doing the smaller lifts, but it still has significant capabilities and was taking up some big pieces of equipment.  Watching it bucking around in the turbulence over the roof as the wind picked up was quite eye opening.  I got stills but, since the conditions were not great, I instead went with a bunch of videos.  The stills just won’t be that exciting, but video gives you more context.

It was quite a while before the S-61 started up.  We had a few false starts when the Astar appeared to land but it was just swapping out lifting lines.  Finally, the S-61 got airborne and it started lifting the heavier loads.  We had heard that about 50 lifts were planned for the S-61 and 30 for the Astar.  After getting some shots and footage, I headed to a few different locations to see whether they had a better angle on things.  You never know which bit of the roof will be the site of the next load so a location might be good for a bit and then too far away and obscured.  More importantly, I was getting pretty bloody cold.  If conditions had been nicer, I would probably have been inclined to hang around a lot longer, but I just couldn’t be bothered.  I figured I had enough, and it was time to head home and get warm.  I think they extended the NOTAM so things must have taken longer than intended but I was long gone by the time that they finished.

Transition From KAWO to Amazon

I am not sure of the reasons why, but Croman moved both of the helicopters used for the Amazon lift over to the site the day before the operation.  They were a short distance from Arlington but apparently there was a reason to not start from the airport.  Fortunately, they did this late in the afternoon after the Astar had arrived.  I had moved across to a parking lot near the site ahead of time hoping to be in a good spot to get them arriving and also to see whether it would be good for the lift itself.

Both helicopters approached my side of Amazon prior to landing.  This meant I got a good head on view of them and a reasonable view as they approached landing.  They did, unfortunately, go directly over my head which limited the shots a little but still wasn’t too bad.  The sun was more on their tails as they made their final approach which wasn’t ideal, but it was the side I was on so could have been worse.  They landed behind some concrete walls so disappeared from view as they went in.  The S-61 was first followed by the Astar.  Now to see how the lift itself went.

Croman S-61 On The Ramp

Amazon is finishing up a huge fulfillment center up in Arlington WA.  I understand it will be over 600k sq ft of space.  The structure is approaching completion and they needed to install the air handler units on the roof.  The most efficient way to do this is by helicopter so, after my many times with helicopter lifts in Chicago, I was looking forward to this happening.

They contracted with Croman Helicopters.  This is an operation out of Oregon, and they do a lot of firefighting work.  The lifting is. A smaller part of their business.  However, it is still a good line for them.  They brought two helicopters up for the lift.  One was an Astar (which might have been theirs or might have been chartered since it had a different name on it) and the other was one of their S-61s.  I’ve shot S-61s a couple of times but not often, so this was something I was looking forward to.  They came up ahead of the lift and parked on the main ramp at Arlington.  Conditions were pretty good and I was able to get some shots of the airframe.

Most of the pictures I have seen of their S-61s have them in a yellow scheme but this one was a dark grey.  It was a nice-looking finish but a bit tough if the lighting wasn’t great.  The S-61 has plenty of rivets which make for some cool textures in the right light.  It was also fitted with a good bubble window for monitoring the load along with some duplicate engine gauges on the outside in the line of sight of the lifting pilot.  I had fingers crossed for good conditions to get it in flight…

Almost Perfect MH-60 Timing

As we started our drive home from Oregon, we were to pass through Astoria.  There is an airfield at Astoria and it is home to a Coast Guard helicopter unit that flies the MH-60T Jayhawk.  I think this is one of the better-looking variants of the Black Hawk family both because of the paint job but also the configuration of external fuel tanks.  I hoped we might see one there, but we had a long drive home and I wasn’t going to subject Nancy to a long delay.

Imagine my frustration as we pulled off US101 towards the airport when an MH-60 flies over our heads towards the airport a mile away.  The light was great, and it looked good but I was driving and it was going to land long before we could get there.  Had I blown it?  Two minutes earlier and we would have been fine.  I pulled up and it was taxiing towards me.  I grabbed the camera and got a few shots as it headed to the Coast Guard ramp.  Check out the logo of Astoria in the shape of the Jayhawk.

However, it didn’t shut down.  I thought they might just be running after landing checks but Nancy asked why they hadn’t stopped everything so we waited for a while.  Sure enough, another crew walked across the ramp and climbed on board.  A few minutes later, they taxied back our way and then lifted.  The departure route has the bridge across the Columbia River in the background and, with great winter light, it looked great.  They turned down to the south and were gone.  I got back in the car and we were back on the road barely ten minutes after leaving 101.  I got my helicopter and Nancy didn’t have a long delay!

Helijet Sunday Ops

The weather in Victoria over the Thanksgiving weekend was not great for aviation photography with a fair bit of rain and definitely only one day when the sun showed up.  That day was not going to be one on which I would suggest to Nancy I go photographing helicopters.  That might not have been the smartest suggestion.  However, when the morning was rainy and cloudy and we were planning on a relaxing day, things could be different.

I hopped in the car and drove around to the heliport which is used by Helijet for their shuttle service to Vancouver.  The Sunday schedule is not the busiest so I had to plan accordingly so I got there in time for an arrival and they were scheduled to head back out again not long afterwards.  I could fit all of this in before heading back for a spot of lunch.

The S-76 is a pretty elegant looking helicopter.  The design has been around for a long time and has gone through a number of iterations but the basic airframe shape is good in my opinion.  It is a lot larger than you might imagine with plenty of seating capacity which makes it good for this shuttle service.  One of the airframes was parked at the heliport when I got there so I got some shots of that.  Then it was a question of waiting for the inbound flight to arrive.

The problem with the heliport is the fencing.  It has quite a tight mesh and it is possible to shoot through it but it requires some care in aligning the end of the lens with the holes.  Sometimes I do better with this than other times.  When the helicopter is coming in, I have to try hard to get it right.  Stepping back away from the fence does provide a little elevation but not much so shooting through the fence is going to be required.

The sky was grey and dreary so approach shots were not going to be too good but I was going to try them anyway.  Once it was close to touchdown, it was a sprint to the fence.  They taxi off the pad to the space in front of the terminal (generous description, I know) and then shut down.  It was too long before they were firing up again.  Given that the wind was not too strong, they were able to lift and head straight out.  As they got on to the pad, it was noticeable just how far aft the rotor was pitched.  Once airborne, this resulting in a nose high altitude and then they were off.

My First Cyclone (In Horrid Conditions)

We made a trip to Victoria quite a few years ago when I happened to get a shot of a Canadian Forces Sea King as it flew by.  That was the only one I ever shot.  They have now been retired and replaced by the outstanding airframe (tongue firmly in cheek) that is the CH-148 Cyclone.  Based on the Sikorsky S-92, the Cyclone development program has been a bloody disaster.  Even as I write this, they are currently addressing cracks in the tail boom that have just shown up.

Just after we got off the ferry at Swartz Bay, we drove to the shoreline in Sidney.  I had only just parked the car and was heading to get something out of the trunk when I heard the sound of rotors.  It was raining heavily and the wind was blowing but I grabbed the camera from the trunk, set it up for rotors and looked up just as a Cyclone flew by a little way off and then turned downwind.  I think they have a squadron based in Victoria International Airport so I suspect it came from there.

The conditions for shooting were awful and the light was terrible so the shots are not too great.  However, sometimes you go with what is available.  I was hoping that they would be doing some pattern work and that we would get another pass but this was the one and only time that we saw them.  Now I have to hope that this isn’t a repeat of my Sea King experience and I never get another shot (although I’m not sure that it is a great helicopter to photograph anyway!).