Daher has delivered a Kodiak 100 turboprop utility aircraft to Héli-Béarn, an operator based at Pau-Pyrénées airport in south-west France. It’s the first delivery of a Kodiak to a French customer.
The Kodiak is renowned for its robustness, high payload, and short take-off and landing capabilities — characteristics that are appreciated for a wide variety of missions. The Kodiak 100 delivered to Héli-Béarn will be used for dropping parachutists.
In this configuration, the Kodiak 100 has a sliding door and benches that can accommodate up to 15 parachutists. Capable of climbing to 12,000ft in under 10 minutes, the Kodiak can provide an average of four launches per hour.
“We would like to thank Héli-Béarn and its Chairman Jean-Luc Dartiailh, whose exacting requirements we are well aware of, for their confidence in our aircraft to support their aerial work activities,” said Nicolas Chabbert, director of the Aircraft division of Daher and Managing Director of Kodiak Aircraft.
“Until now, the Kodiak has been a little-known aircraft outside of North America and Asia. With this first delivery of a Kodiak to a French customer, we hope to change the situation,” added Nicolas.
“As an aerial work operator, we were interested in the Kodiak as soon as we learned that Daher had purchased it,” replied Jean-Luc Dartiailh, director of Héli-Béarn.
“We were able to test it in operational conditions, and we were quickly convinced that it was the ideal aircraft, especially for parachute drops.
“It is a modern, safe, easy to maintain and efficient device with an operating cost 25% lower than other aircraft in service.”
Héli-Béarn, founded in 1996, is a company whose main activities are transport and aerial work, maintenance and training. It operates a fleet of around ten aircraft, mainly Airbus AS350 B2/B3, AS355, SA315B helicopters as well as a TBM 700.
Daher is an aircraft manufacturer and an industry and service equipment supplier across three main businesses: aircraft manufacturing, aerospace equipment and systems, logistics and supply chain services.
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