The new CAL FIRE Helicopter 202 arriving at McClellan in Sacramento, October 2022. It will be stationed at Bieber in Lassen County. Mike McKeig photo.The tenth of twelve new Sikorsky S70i FIRE HAWKs arrived at the CAL FIRE Aviation Management Unit last week at McClellan Park in Sacramento.
It will be deployed in northeast California at Bieber in Lassen County.
CAL FIRE is replacing their 12 Vietnam War-era Huey helicopters with Firehawks. Two more are still being built by Sikorsky or are being outfitted for firefighting by a company in Colorado.
The new CAL FIRE Helicopter 202 after arrival at McClellan in Sacramento, October 2022. It will be stationed at Bieber in Lassen County. CAL FIRE photo.
6 Comments
What are they doing with the Huey’s? Are they going back into the 1033/government surplus system?
Re: What are they doing with the Huey’s? Zzz
I’m sure the Ukrainians would love to have them!
Can 1033 operators even afford parts and support? LE has a sweet deal going but there are Huey operators that can support the aircraft and parts, probably alot better…
The CAL FIRE Hueys are not part of the 1033 program that was bestowed on law enforcement agencies. They are Federal Excess Property Program aircraft that came directly from the Army To the USFS for use in fire supression only. Technically they may not be passed on to exclusively LE agencies. Technically also, the FS gets to decide who can get one of these, should CAL FIRE decide to relinquish them. The FS could let CAL FIRE pass them to another fire agency with their approval.
One aspect that agencies need to consider is that these aircraft are highly modified by CF and the maintenance program is a combination of military, commercial and CF operational experience that many agencies would have a hard time sustaining due to lack of stockpiled parts, institutional knowledge, and outright manpower. I suspect CF might even have some liability issues if a passdown agency wanted to use their program or asked for training. I’m sure Bell would want nothing to do with them. As far as they are concerned, the Army spec’ed them out and owned the design, CF modified them far beyond what Bell or the Army would have done and that they do not want to support them with other than superficial help.
Who knows if CF would give away their massive Huey inventory that was bought with State money from the Defense Logistics Agency, undoubedly worth millions of dollars, along with aircraft that might be passed on. The FEPP rule is that aircraft must be returned to the FS in the same ( or better condition) that they came in. The original rotor blades, drive trains, and engines are all gone and much of what is on these aircraft is not FEPP property and is also worth millions. This of course includes the water tanks and rescue hoists and the like. It could end up being simple if the Sate says they aren’t going to worry about that, or very complex if they choose to make it so. It will be interesting to watch. My opinion is that they should keep all or most of these aircraft as backup, dire emergency and training fleet aircraft. For what they are, there is still nothing that can replace them. I can think of lots of missions the Hueys could support to keep the S70is from having to pick up drinking water, food for fire crews and chain saw parts and gas. Use the Hawks for what they are good at. Night ops, carrying 3 times the water, and moving more people much faster. Twin engine aerial rescue is a serious safety plus with the Hawks as well.
Bell-Textron offers the Huey II new at about 5-6 million US. The Huey II is the upgraded UH-1/205.
Want to save a millon? Take a used UH1H, send it to Bell Textron and they will remanufacture it to Huey II specs.
There is still world wide support for the UH 1/205.
Funny to see the front tricycle gear repositioned. I will bet former Army Guys have to learn landing all over again.
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