Viking Helicopters

Thumbnail image for 1974 On hire

1974 On hire

OMNR

The sleepy forest fire season in northwestern Ontario finally kicked in with a vengeance, when, after a long spell of drought, dry lightning ran through the district. Dryden-16 was ignited not far from the Federal Government’s Experimental Lakes Area at Hayes Lake.

Thumbnail image for 1974 On spec

1974 On spec

OMNR

I ferried the new 500C around to several of the forestry bases in northwestern Ontario to let forestry officials have a look and to evaluate the load capacity and the numbers. Viking Helicopters was looking to encourage Ontario’s MNR to do some charter work, hoping for a month or two of minimums during 1974′s fire season which was just beginning.

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Setting poles

Viking Helicopters

February of 1974 found me in Central Patricia. Ontario Hydro had hired Viking’s 500 to support their operation to replace poles on the line from Pickle Lake to Red Lake. Much of the right-of-way ran through swamps and bogs, thus the operation couldn’t have been completed in the summer.

Thumbnail image for Viking Helicopters does it different

Viking Helicopters does it different

People

In the spring of 1973, Viking Helicopters took over Ontario Hydro line patrols in northwestern Ontario. Initially we had a running battle with Hydro over how we planned to do the patrols. As a money-making operation, we were unwilling to consider even for a minute the six- to eight-week schedule that Hydro used.

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Hydro line patrols

Viking Helicopters

Ontario Hydro used a 47G-2 to do their powerline patrols in northwestern Ontario. The G-2 was chased by a maintenance vehicle with all of the needed tools and gear – depending on the season – for the engineer accompanying the aircraft.

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