In March 2025, Helicopter Express of Chamblee, Georgia, closed a deal for an undisclosed amount to acquire Siller Helicopters of Yuba City, California, and all its helicopter-related assets. The company is now in the process of fusing the two entities to ensure uninterrupted support for customers and employees.
The purchase includes two standard category Sikorsky S-64E and two restricted category Sikorsky CH-54A Skycranes, two restricted category Sikorsky S-61s variants, and one CH-54A airframe currently being rebuilt. The sale also included Siller’s massive Skycrane parts inventory, which currently fills nearly four warehouses in Yuba City.
The sale comes one year after Helicopter Express purchased Erickson’s operations division and fleet of 10 operating and three incomplete S-64 airframes in 2024. The company has since completed one of the three Erickson-acquired airframes and work is underway to complete the remaining two. The acquisition of Siller’s parts inventory helps boost this process.
“International demand for the Skycrane is growing faster than we can meet it,” explained Scott Runyan, CEO and owner of Helicopter Express. “Despite purchasing Erickson, we only had five Skycranes left in the U.S. to serve the North American fire season. The rest are overseas and we’re bidding on more jobs. We needed more aircraft and the parts to support them. Siller had the world’s largest supply of S-64 parts.”
Helicopter Express holds a mix of construction and firefighting contracts in Europe and Saudi Arabia calling for 11 Skycranes, with the potential to increase to 14 as demand warrants. The company is waiting to hear on several additional bids on top of those contracts.
Just like in North America, Europe is seeing larger fires that burn hotter= and for longer. With the two continents in the same hemisphere, the pressure on the limited supply of heavy helicopters only increases, Runyan said.
“The Skycrane and Chinook are really the only aircraft that can put out the big fires,” Runyan explained. “And because most of Europe has oceans as water sources, the Skycrane is more versatile because of our Sea Snorkel, which allows us to fill our tank with seawater without needing to hover, [so] the rotorwash doesn’t spray the helicopter with salt water. It’s the only snorkel system that works with saltwater without the hazards of corrosion.”
For now, the Siller aircraft, parts, and maintenance will continue to operate out of Yuba City, at least through the 2025 fire season, Runyan said. However, due to growth and demand, he is looking for a more consolidated location. If efforts to expand the current Erickson facility are unsuccessful, he said he sees an opportunity to move the Medford operation to a new location and consolidate it with the Siller assets. He’s currently researching potential options around Reno, Nevada.
With the acquisition of Siller, Helicopter Express owns the vast majority of the world’s supply of S-64 Skycranes, in addition to their parts and the production certificate to manufacture more. The company runs the power-by-the-hour contracts for the remaining global fleet through its Erickson division. Also, with its ownership of the S-64 production certificate as part of the Erickson acquisition, Helicopter Express is close to putting the aircraft back into production (until now, the company has been limited to rebuilding airframes).
“We have the fixtures coming to build new center and nose sections, which were the last parts of the aircraft we weren’t able to build from scratch,” Runyan said. “Once we have those, we can go into full production of new Skycranes.”
