S-76C Firehawk?

[Bushfire]

In the US Forest Service "Helicopter Dip Tank Capabilities and Users' Guide" August 2006 they mention a 575 gallon belly tank for the S-76C. Has anyone heard about this? I didn't think the S-76C could lift 575 gallons.

[toolguy]

Must be a typo - S-70C is the Firehawk. Tough to get a belly tank on a S-76 with only about 8 inches ground clearance. :}

[NickLappos]

I know of no special tank for the 76 family, just a hook and buckets.

The Black Hawk has a 1000 gallon belly tank, detailed here:

http://www.sikorsky.com/file/popup/0,9604,1837,00.pdf

[SASless]

Los Angeles Fire Hawk aircraft



http://www.minihelicopter.net/LACoFDFirehawk/LACoFD%20Firehawk.jpg


Civilian owned "Fire Hawk" aircraft.

http://www.firehawkhelicopters.com/photogallery/photo00008176/sidepan1.jpg

[ShyTorque]

SASless, that last picture is personally very interesting. It shows what I think is an ex HK GFS Blackhawk in the foreground and possibly the other two in the background (not repainted, only the reg numbers changed). I was wondering where they went. Any more info who now owns them? Thanks. :)

[CS-Hover]

Maybe here

http://www.firehawkhelicopters.com/

[Bushfire]

Thankyou for the information. If anyones interested in the report

www.fs.fed.us/eng/pubs/pdf/hi_res/06571306hi.pdf (http://www.fs.fed.us/eng/pubs/pdf/hi_res/06571306hi.pdf)

The S-76C is only mentioned once, must be an error.

[ShyTorque]

CS-H,
Thanks very much for that. I flew something over 300 hours on those three airframes and they are my favourite aircraft. They have quite a history. Two of them were responsible for rescuing three trapped men from the red hot roof of the burning Garley building tragedy in Kowloon, in which 40 people perished. Those men would most definitely have died too, but for those aircraft and the bravery of my colleagues. By the time they were plucked from the fires of hell the soles of their shoes were melting.

Not to mention one of them (either J or K) which survived a night, no lights assault roping exercise onto a ship in the western approaches to Hong Kong. It suffered a fairly serious blade strike when it took out a large whip aerial with the main rotor (it wasn't B-HZI as I was flying that one, immediately adjacent to it :oh: ).

I note they still have the Chinese external registration numbers ("B" prefix)and the callsign plagues on the instrument panels. Before being re-registered to China on the 1st July 1997 they were registered VH-HZ/I/J/K.

[widgeon]

I know Brown Helicopters out of FLorida were trying to sell some Blackhawks. Is it possible to export Blackhawk spares to Hong Kong now ?. I though China was still on the excluded list. Could be why they were retired from HK.

[Sundance76]

Anyone know what the civil versions are selling for used? and what their hourly opperating costs are?
S

[Ian Corrigible]

Anyone know what the civil versions are selling for used? and what their hourly operating costs are?
Nick's the man to ask, but C&D give the hourly cost as $2,200, which is in the same ballpark as DoD aircraft. Brainerd/Brown aside, most 'civil' Hawks are government ships, so used pricing data isn't available, but I'd take a SWAG at $6-7M.

I/C

[CS-Hover]

Hi

at least a magazine as an advert about selling "Two Sikorsky S-70C Black Hawks"

any rumor about this??

IAN: they advertised as "$8 million (US) each"

regards

[TwinHueyMan]

Page 4 of the current issue of "Vertical" magazine has their ad. One is an 83 with 4138 hours and the other is an 86 with 2674 hours. $8m each. What a steal!

[helonorth]

The second picture is in Leesburg Fl. at Brainard Helicopters. They
operate civilian S-70s and AStars doing mostly fire contracts. I don't
think they have a web site.

[Bushfire]

Brainerd Helicopters website is

www.firehawkhelicopters.com (http://www.firehawkhelicopters.com)