Bankstown Saturday 19th October 2013

[Grahame Hutchison]

With the two Skycranes arriving back on the 10th October, I thought I would head out to Bankstown to see how they were going.

The crew were already working on the aircraft when I arrived, so I headed over and had a great chat to one of the pilots. They have arrived in from Greece, where they were performing fire fighting operations, two pilots are required under the regulations, and in Greece they had an interpreter to allow coms with fire fighting ground crews.

For the trip in the Antonov, they remove the main and tail rotor, tail stabilizer, the main undercarriage is replaced by a special fixed undercarriage, as is the front undercarriage. When they load the S-64 up the Antonov ramp, they need to raise the back of the aircraft so it does not touch the tarmac. Once inside there is only about 5 inches clearance from the roof of the Antonov. For this trip they loaded two Skycranes and two shipping containers of support equipment.

Erickson are working on the development of carbon fibre rotor blades, and are part way through the testing and certification process. They new blades will provide greater lifting capability, and require less maintenance. The current rotor blades have a crack detection sensor which must be checked every three hours of operation.

Apart from fire fighting, the Skycranes are used for logging in Malaysia and Canada, and there is now a large power line infrastructure project in the USA. For lifting and installation work, the rear facing station has a full collective and joystick with 10% control of the aircraft. Once positioned by the pilot, the rear operator can position the aircraft exactly for construction work.

I think this is the first Sydney deployment for "Ichabod", which is an E model S-64, and they are operational as of today. The other S-64 had an engine problem that required replacement, and with the recent severe bushfire activity in the Blue Mountains and other locations, the State Government moved the contract for "Ichabod" forward one month. The F model has a different main undercarriage, rotor and more powerful engines (300hp each side).

[Grahame Hutchison]

[Stephen Brown]

Bahahahahaha Ichabod Crane!!!!!!

[AdamC]

Nice shots Grahame,

who owned the bell with the maple leaf on it?

Cheers

[Grahame Hutchison]

Hi Adam, I had a close look at the high-res image and cannot see any registration. Unfortunately there was no one in the hanger for a chat.

[Jayden Laing]

Adam & Grahame,
I found this image on JetPhotos.net & I think the chopper you photographed Grahame is C-FXNI of East West Helicopters. FYI, it's a Bell 214B-1

http://jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=547693&nseq=0

[Grahame Hutchison]

Looks like the right one (or very similar) Jayden, maybe joining the Australian Register, or leased for the fire season.

The Bell 214B is known as a "Huey Plus".

[AdamC]

Thanks guys appreciated.

Cheers

Adam

[Dave Powell]

Hi Grahame

Great report as always. just FYI Ichobod was in the region in Jan 2012 - I photographed it on the Central Coast on 12th

cheers

Dave

[Grahame Hutchison]

Thanks for the update Dave.