Daher delivers a Kodiak 100 to its first French customer

Daher announced the delivery of a Kodiak 100 turboprop utility aircraft to the Héli-Béarn company. This aerial work operator based at Pau-Pyrénées airport (Pyrénées Atlantique) thus becomes the first French customer for this aircraft.

Built in Sandpoint (Idaho, USA), the Kodiak is renowned for its robustness, high payload, and short take-off and landing capabilities. Characteristics appreciated for a wide variety of missions. The Kodiak 100 delivered to Héli-Béarn is more particularly intended for dropping parachutists.

In this configuration, the Kodiak 100 has a sliding door and benches to take up to 15 parachutists. Capable of climbing to 3,000 m (12,000 ft) in 9:30, it can provide an average of 4 rotations per hour.

"We would like to thank Héli-Béarn and its Chairman Jean-Luc Dartiailh, whose level of requirements we are well aware of, for their confidence in our aircraft to develop their aerial work activities", commented 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. " he added. “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 the parachute drop. It is a modern, safe, easy to maintain and efficient device. With an operating cost 25% lower than that of aircraft in service, it seems to us the ideal solution to take over from the aging fleet of parachute centers. »He concluded.

Héli-Béarn, founded in 1996, is a company whose main activities are transport and aerial work by helicopters and planes, aeronautical maintenance and various training courses related to aeronautics. It operates a fleet of around ten aircraft, mainly Airbus AS350 B2 / B3, AS355, SA315B helicopters as well as a TBM 700.