Helicopter Operations
The history of Canadian Helicopters’ Antarctic Operations Program dates back to 1979 when Helicopters New Zealand (later known as HNZ) launched its first venture into Antarctica.
By 1985, the company was providing helicopters and specialist crew to a variety of Antarctic expeditions on a continuous/yearly basis. In 2011 Canadian Helicopters purchased HNZ’s Antarctic business.
The Antarctic program is an excellent complement to Canadian Helicopters’ existing operations in the Canadian Arctic, where Canadian Helicopters has been operating since the early 1960s and provides year-round day/night arctic support service. The combined experience of the two operations has resulted in an organization with a combined 95 years of experience operating in the polar regions. No other operator has comparable cold-weather operating experience.
Over the years we have been employed in many types of operations in Antarctica.
Our company and crew are skilled and experienced with activities such as:
• Ground penetrating radar survey
• LIDAR Survey
• AeroMagnetic survey
• VIP transport
• Ship to shore operations
• Meteorite hunting
• Tourist ship operations
• Ice reconnaissance
• Station building including long-lining
• Filming and vertical photography
• Camp deployments and support
Past and present clients include:
• The Italian ENEA programme
• The Korean KOPRI programme
• The German GANOVEX programme
• The French IPEV programme
• Antarctica New Zealand programme
• Australian ANARE programme
• The Indian NCAOR programme
• The Japanese NIPR programme
Canadian Helicopters has utilised what we believe to be the widest range of helicopters on the continent. While
predominantly utilising AS350B2 aircraft, over the years we have deployed aircraft ranging from the Bell 206 through to Bell 212 and Sikorsky S76 (in the Arctic we also operate the Bell 407 and Sikorsky S61N). Operational downtime is kept to an absolute minimum as a result of our unsurpassed engineering and spares support programmes. Our helicopters utilize the latest Skytrac Flight Following technology with satellite phones integrated within the modern avionics suite.
