Ericksons have arrived!!

[Greg McDonald]

Three Skycrane 54B helicopters arrived by freighter (Amalie Scan) into Sydney earlier this afternoon. The ship is docked at Glebe Island 2.

For those interested here are some stats:
Max. Speed: 100 kts
Water tank capacity: 9000 ltrs
Foam concentrate: 50 ltrs
Hover fill: 50 secs
Sea snorkel fill: 40 secs
Fuel burn: 1893 ltr/hr
Fuel Capacity: 5114 ltr
Length: 27.23 mtrs
Main Rotor: 22 mtrs
Height: 7.82 mtrs

[Kurt A]

Hi Greg,

You must be referring to these bubble-wrapped baby's.

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g183/yssy_moderator/YSSY%20Stuff/IMG_9772.jpg

Spotted previously today from my conveniently located eagle eye position.

[Greg McDonald]

Mate - you're good. I wish I could get views like that from my office...

[NickN]

Not the best fuel economy!

[Shameel Kumar]

Not the best fuel economy!

Probably purposely designed that way so that in the unfortunate event one of these workhorses was to go down, it wouldn't add much to the fire because there wouldn't be much fuel left.:p

Oh I shouldn't joke about such things.

Let's hope that they're not too busy this summer!

[Grahame Hutchison]

Are there two or three onboard, there is already one out at Bankstown.

[Greg McDonald]

Definitely 3 on board Grahame. The third is hiding behind the container on the foredeck.

[Pavitar Singh]

Saw one at BK last week. These things make a tremendous amount of noise!

[Jethro H]

Not the best fuel economy!
Yikes.... that's 1/2 litre per second!!

[Ryan Hothersall]

From what I understand, one should be heading towards Adelaide in the next couple of weeks.

[Philip Argy]

Hi Greg,

You must be referring to these bubble-wrapped baby's.

{snip}

Spotted previously today from my conveniently located eagle eye position.

A great Ams scan of Amalie Scan!

And a bit more about the vessel for anyone interested in what's under the choppers: http://www.scan-trans.com/Default.aspx?ID=155

[Brenden S]

Don't forget that there is 2 engines installed on the helicopter.

So how many total of the Aircranes/S64's do we currently have in the country?

[Robert Zweck]

A good source says this is where they will be based.....


Bankstown

N178AC Isabelle
N217AC Malcolm

Essendon

N179AC Elvis
N218AC Elsie

Adelaide

N173AC Christine Scheduled to arrive here Monday 15th

[Jethro H]

Channel 7's Sunrise is running it's own "Name the air-cranes"

http://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/b/sunrise/19533/name-the-air-cranes

[Steve Jones]

One of them passed through Canberra yesterday - I wasn't able to pick up which rego it was, though.

[Nick W.]

I saw 5 on wednesday evening on the pier, 2 of which were fully re-assembled from what i saw, and the other 3 slowly getting there, and were all gone yesterday when i went into work. impressive assembly rate.

[Robert Zweck]

One of them passed through Canberra yesterday - I wasn't able to pick up which rego it was, though.



Would have been ferrying from Sydney down to Essendon

[Robert Zweck]

Channel 7's Sunrise is running it's own "Name the air-cranes"



N178AC Isabelle will change its name to Clancy, N173AC Christine will become Flynn and N218AC Elsie will become Bluey.

Flynn is the one destined for Brukunga in the Adelaide Hills in a week or two and is currently at Essendon.

[Robert Zweck]

The following info was current last Friday, Dec 12th

Arriving at Essendon by road this morning from the docks were Coulson
Aircrane S-61N's C-FMAY/347 and C-FCLM/348 both of which carried State
Aircraft Unit, Victoria titles.



Erickson S-64E N173AC/733 Christine arrived at Essendon last night while
flying into Essendon this morning were Erickson S-64F N179AC/739 Elvis and
S-64E N218AC/749 Elsie. All three aircraft departed Sydney for Canberra and
Albury yesterday with Elvis and Elsie staying overnight while Christine
continued on to Essendon.



Erickson S-64E N194AC Delilah which is in the Sydney area is the sixth
Erickson Skycrane in the country


And in an update…….

S-61N C-FMAY/347 will be based at Colac, Victoria for the summer while S-61N C-FCLM /348 which was flying yesterday will be based at Mansfield.

Both currently at Essendon

[Robert Zweck]

The following was current last Thursday, Dec 11th

Carson Helicopters S-61N N7011M fire attack 767 arrived at Essendon this
afternoon from the Melbourne docks and after re-fuelling it departed about
1600 on ferry to Perth where it will be based for the summer.



New to the fire attack scene this year in Victoria are three Bell 212's
imported by Helicorp.

VH-JJK//332 and VH-JJR/333 which are in a grey military scheme with dayglo
doors and trim have already been assembled and have departed to their bases
for the summer. The third Bell 212 VH-JJY which is in a black and white
scheme with dayglo trim is still at Essendon.

[Russell D]

I had my second lesson at YSBK on Saturday and I saw a total of three aircranes: 2 parked on the grass near SFC area and one more tucked around the back near the DC-3 close to the Aerospace Aviation a/c parking area.

Couldn't get any regos as I was in the car.

[Steve Schueler]

N173AC 'Christine' in South Australia

[Ray P.]

Here's a few more Christine pics taken at Brukunga CFS station.

365 366 367

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