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Monster chopper: Evergreen Helicopters bases heavy lifting helicopter in Anchorage
Steve Sutherlin PNA Managing Editor
At 185 gallons per hour, the Evergreen Helicopters of Alaska Inc. Sikorsky S-61R won’t be racking up flight seeing hours, but no mere gnat of a passenger copter could hoist the S-61R’s 6,500 pound payload. Evergreen based the Sikorsky in Anchorage earlier this summer and it is, the company said, the highest lift capacity helicopter permanently based in Alaska.
The S-61R is a specialist, called on for firefighting, fuel hauling, construction, and setting communications modules onto mountaintops. Leaves no tracks With the nation focused on the impact of industry in Alaska, the S61 will likely be busier than ever when the job calls for heavy hauling but no tracks on the tundra. Its 2,300 horsepower GE engine twirls five main and five tail rotor blades to lift the craft to a maximum service ceiling of 17,500 feet and cruise at a maximum 143 nautical miles per hour.
In 1976 Evergreen based an S-61N in Alaska to support a $43 million semi-submersible drilling rig used in the Gulf of Alaska by ARCO, Shell and Mobil. That S-61 was configured for 24 passengers and was used to ferry crews to the rig from a supply base in Yakutat. The S-61N was also used in the 1970s at Prudhoe Bay.
Company officials said Evergreen was confident that the heavy lift capability would be in demand in the 2000s for reworking and further development of existing oil structures.
“The decision to reposition the S61R is in anticipation of additional work where a heavy lift helicopter would be of use to customers,” Greg Thies, Evergreen’s director of marketing told PNA.
Already this summer the aircraft made quick work of a re-vegetation project by CH2M Hill for Shell Oil and Ambler Exploration Inc. at a Kustatan River exploration site.
The stability of the craft allows it to handle high volume loads of peat moss and topsoil, Thies said. It also can lift 785 gallon loads of water.
“The S61R was instrumental in helping to knock down the Kenai Lakes fire,” Thies said.
Even on a job where a smaller craft could do the work, the S61R reduces costs by improving efficiency and doing the job more quickly, Thies said, adding, “You get more lift for the dollar.”
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