For operators of big-bladed, heavy lift “Category 1” helicopters, times have never been better. “We’re seeing immense demand,” enthused Katrina Miller, director of business development at Billings Flying Service in Billings, Montana.
Billings currently operates six Boeing CH-47D Chinooks in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) restricted category, and is working an additional six into its fleet. The latter half-dozen were acquired from the Royal Netherlands Ministry of Defence last year, and will be added to Billings’ fleet on a phased basis beginning this fall and throughout 2025. Miller hinted to Vertical there could be additional helicopters to come. “Our plan is to continue that growth trajectory over the next three to five years,” she said.
Heavies are currently in vogue due in part to “increasing challenges for environmental and access issues on any number of projects,” said Seth Gunsauls, president of PJ Helicopters in Red Bluff, California. “We’re building more unique infrastructure in more unique places than ever before.” The projects run the gamut from telecom to hydroelectric to oil-and-gas. PJ currently operates a fleet of seven Chinooks that it has integrated into its fleet since 2021, expanding its payroll from 120 employees to 200.
Miller said Billings’ CH-47Ds are equally deployed between construction and firefighting missions and that the demand for Category 1 helicopters is driven not only by those customers directly, but indirectly by the war in Ukraine. The ongoing sanctions on Russia have stemmed the flow of parts for dozens of Kamov Ka-32 heavy lift coaxial helicopters that had found their way onto the civil market in the West. The model’s type certificate has also been revoked by some agencies.
Cyprus, Portugal, South Korea, and Spain have been particularly impacted by the effective grounding of the Ka-32, said Miller. “We’ve absolutely seen an impact on the operators of that airframe, and naturally you’re going to see parts and MRO [maintenance, repair and overhaul] support dwindle,” she said. “Those aircraft will be pulled out of service. Compounding that, as well — it’s an aging airframe. It creates a void in the market that is going to have to be replenished somehow, because fires are not going to stop.”
Miller also noted that the current supply and demand “imbalance” has produced longer term contracts for operators. “I am seeing more exclusive use [tenders] come through the pipeline,” she said. This includes a contract Billings received for five of its CH-47Ds from the South Korean Forest Service. Domestically, the company received its first ever exclusive use firefighting contract from the Montana Department of Natural Resources. “It’s the first time they’ve issued an exclusive use contract for a Chinook,” she said. “Every other time it has been call-when-needed.”
Like Billings, PJ operates the CH-47s in the restricted category. In addition to construction, PJ deploys elements of its fleet on firefighting missions which are increasingly utilizing quick response strategies in the hopes of minimizing uncontained spread. “A firefighting Chinook is pound-for-pound one of the best assets in the world,” said Gunsauls. “As a result, we are likely to see continued interest from customers in it over the coming years.” But even with more military surplus Chinooks hitting the market, he was sanguine about adding too many too fast to his company’s fleet. He noted that “giving the aircraft the care and feeding that they need” not only required a head count growth, but also an expansion of facilities “to accommodate just the sheer size of the aircraft,” in addition to the required tooling and support.
“The trick has always been to try and keep the level of quality high,” said Gunsauls. “We’re constantly assessing our ability to do that paired with what the market truly needs. I am wary of market saturation, adding too much too quickly, which is why our fleet will grow in a linear fashion, should it need to.”
Transport Category options
While Billings and PJ operate their Chinooks in the restricted category, Columbia Helicopters is looking to modify CH-47Ds to enable their use as a utility-purposed helicopter in the FAA-certified transport category via its 234SP program, announced in February. The change will enable the helicopter to be used on electric infrastructure projects in Europe, and for other applications where the restricted category designation could prove problematic. Certification and market entry is planned for 2025.
In July, Columbia and Piasecki Aircraft Corp. announced a collaboration to update the type certificate for the tandem rotor Model 107-II to a new variant: the 107-III. It will have more powerful engines, modern avionics and other improvements. The companies also plan to remanufacture military surplus Boeing CH-46E Sea Knights into the 107-III configuration, producing a standard category aircraft to transport people or property for hire.
Of course, there are other options besides CH-47Ds for the growing heavy-lift market. Earlier this year, Chamblee, Georgia-based Helicopter Express acquired Erickson’s owned fleet of 16 S-64 Skycranes. Eighteen months ago, Helicopter Express placed a single Skycrane on a construction contract in Saudi Arabia. Erickson subsequently offered the operator five more helicopters and eventually its entire remaining fleet — 15 Skycranes in total — as it exited the operations side of the business to focus on support.
Helicopter Express quickly placed eight of them on firefighting contracts in Greece and one on a 150-day exclusive use contract with the Los Angeles City Fire Department. The others soon found contract work in other locales, many on long-term agreements. Three more Skycranes are being built up for Helicopter Express and will join the fleet within 18 months.
Adding the Skycranes tripled Helicopter Express’s revenues, said company president Scott Runyan. “They bring in a lot of money and we charge a lot. We don’t ever want to chase the bottom of the market.” The addition of the S-64s also doubled the operator’s headcount, from 150 to 300.
Runyan said he sees a bright future for the company’s expanding Skycrane fleet due to growth in the construction and firefighting sectors. “The demand overall worldwide for heavies has expanded because of construction and the new philosophy of getting on fires early,” he said, maintaining that this demand can only be met by Skycranes and Chinooks. Runyan noted that, unlike the CH-47D, the S-64 remains in production and is fully FAA-certified, meaning it does not need to operate in the restricted category. And Runyan said the Skycrane can do more and do it better.
“It’s really the only helicopter in the world that can pick up 25,000 pounds [11,340 kilograms] and do it with precision,” he said — largely due to the aft-facing seat configuration. “We can look straight down as opposed to looking out a bulge [side-facing bubble window].” Runyan said this capability is particularly useful on powerline work.
Maintenance Challenges
But in both the case of the Chinook and the Skycrane, maintaining a fleet that is either aging, has an aging design, or both, presents unique challenges. For one thing, average annual flight hours are highly variable, depending on the amount of work booked and contributory factors such as fire season severity. In the case of Skycranes, Runyan estimated that the worldwide operational fleet is fewer than 40. Aside from recent supply chain issues, “keeping the right amount of inventory to support those helicopters, especially in the utility world where our flight hours fluctuate, is a tough challenge.”
For Chinook operators, there is the added variable of sourcing military cost-structured parts from Boeing. However, both Billings and PJ point to a civil ecosystem that has developed around civil CH-47Ds that at least partially ameliorates many of those concerns. According to Miller, Billings’ CH-47D fleet maintains an operational readiness rate of better than 98 percent. The company maintains its own, vertically-integrated MRO facility and CH-47D operators “absolutely” help each other with maintenance and parts issues.
While PJ’s Gunsauls acknowledged that maintenance issues surrounding the CH-47D can occasionally be “challenging,” he said Boeing is “very keen to continue supporting the airframe and its operators on the civilian side. So I’m encouraged about the trajectory of that relationship. We’ve been having a lot of encouraging discussions with Boeing over the last few years.” Gunsauls said those discussions parallel ones he has had with Sikorsky to support PJ’s fleet of seven UH-60As. The support needs for most operators are particularly acute during winter downtimes, when many operators do heavy phase maintenance, he said.
For the time being, Runyan is not concerned about the ability to obtain support for Helicopter Express’s Skycranes. A larger issue looms — required updating as the fleet ages. Runyan said the company is planning ahead. “We’re looking at some new
modifications, including an all-glass cockpit that hopefully will be out in the next 24 months, as well as re-engining.”
Runyan said the most likely replacement for the Skycrane’s fuel-thirsty, 550-US gallon-per-hour pair of Pratt & Whitney JFTD-12-4A engines (4,500 shp each) is the Rolls-Royce T-406-AD-400 (6,150 shp each). This is the same engine that powers the Bell-Boeing V-22 tiltrotor. In addition to providing extra power, the engine has a significantly lower fuel burn of around 300 gph.
While Runyan said any re-engining is probably a decade off, it makes sense. “There are certain parts that are becoming more difficult to source,” he said. Turbine blades and bearings are prime examples, while fuel controllers have also been an issue in the past. The Rolls-Royce engines would enable greater payloads and mission durations. But in the same breath, Runyan cautioned against over-investing in the airframe. Even with surging demand, he said the maximum world market for an aircraft like the Skycrane is at best 60 to 70 units, and that the recent shuttering of Kaman’s K-Max production line is a caution against boundless optimism when it comes to the heavy market.
Nevertheless, he remained upbeat. Like Miller, he sees the trend toward longer term contracts as welcome stability. “Our long-term commitments make us feel pretty secure,” he said. “Over half of our fleet is on exclusive-use, well-paying contracts that take the pressure off for at least the next five years.” And that’s a relief because acquiring Erickson’s fleet was “a big deal.”
“I’m 69 years old now and I would have loved to do the deal when I was 40, but I didn’t have the money then,” he said. “But now we took the plunge and it was a really good plunge. We’re really happy about it and we are running wide-open,” Runyan says.
Gunsauls feels the same way about PJ’s CH-47D fleet. “It’s been coming up on four years. It’s been a great ride.”
Billings’ Miller agrees. “We love the [CH-47D] airframe. We’re always looking for more.”
