Extremely Rare Heavy Lift Helicopter Makes Appearance Over Small Town

Helicopter Services - Lifts

Extremely Rare Heavy Lift Helicopter Makes Appearance Over Small Town

A lucky photographer managed to spot something well outside the normal daily air traffic of birds and high-flying passenger planes this past Wednesday afternoon. It started with an unexpected but fantastically loud noise that prompted a closer look.

Bird photographer Dustin Kvammen was trying to capture eagles on camera on October 6th when all the nearby birds suddenly departed. This happened near Dewdney Trunk Road and 232 Street close to largely rural, mountainous terrain in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada. The cause: the sudden and thunderous appearance of a Sikorsky Erickson Skycrane heavy-lift helicopter.

According to Kvammen, “I could hear what I thought was thunder in the distance, then to my surprise it was the Sikorsky-Erickson Skycrane”. He also correctly noted that “It’s a pretty rare helicopter”.

Kvammen’s experience with these special-use choppers extends back to childhood when he used to see them lifting transmission towers into the sky in the nearby city of Port Moody.

The Erickson S-64 line of cargo helicopters is commonly used for heavy-duty air cargo projects. These often include industrial construction in remote areas, transport of heavy machinery, and specialized emergency hauling services for firefighting crews.

And the helicopter is indeed extremely rare in the skies. According to Bob Hawthorne, chief pilot for Canadian Air-Crane Ltd, which operates the S-64 that Kvammen saw, there are only 27 of these machines operational worldwide. The company operates its heavy-lift helicopter services from its base in the nearby city of Delta.

Unlike many other cargo choppers, the S-64 Skycrane is extremely utilitarian in its specialization for heavy transport. The tiny cabin is squashed into a boxy slice at the front of the chopper and can carry only two passengers. The rest of the otherwise large machine is devoted entirely to accomodating large loads.

Another unique design feature is that one of these two cockpit seats faces rearward, allowing the copilot to watch the load for precision lifting tasks.

The S-64 was often used in combat landscapes such as Vietnam decades ago to move heavy artillery into and out of battlefields. It could also haul away other crashed helicopters and smaller aircraft.

Today, this very unique chopper is applied mostly to peaceful purposes that include fighting forest fires and aerial construction transport.

The Canadian Airforce also operates three S-64 Skycranes, though only one of them is operational at this time.

In 2021, Hawthorne’s single Skycrane was kept extremely busy fighting forest fires throughout the vast province of British Columbia. Enormous fire tanks were bolted to the open belly of the aircraft and could be used to suck up as much as 3000 gallons of water per load.

These would then be carried to an affected area and emptied strategically. S-64 helicopters can also otherwise carry up to 20,000 lbs (9,000 kg) of cargo, and one particular variant of the chopper is capable of lifting 25,000 lbs, or 11,000 kgs.

The S-64 is of course also used for heli-logging, and this is exactly what it was returning from on October 6th when Kvammen spotted it during his photographic excursion. The giant machine had just completed a selective tree-cutting job along the densely forested mountain shores of Harrison Lake to the north of Maple Ridge.

Private air charter companies such as Fair Lifts are often used by the government and other clients for heavy helicopter lift services with specialized transport choppers similar to the S-64. The tasks they perform include rescue, transport, and construction projects among others.

Photo Credit: Erickson