Norwegian Bell 412s celebrate 100,000 hours in the air
The Norwegian Air Force's fleet of Bell 412s have celebrated a milestone 100,000 flight hours.
The event was marked with the celebratory signing of a rotor blade painted up specially for the occasion at Maymana, the deployed operating location for the Norwegian aircraft in Afghanistan. The ceremony was attended by Defense Ministers Grete Faremo and Harald Sunde.
Eirik Stueland is second in command of 339 Squadron at Bardufoss and has over 2,000 hours on the Bell 412. He said: "I flew my first trip with the Bell 412 in October 1998. It was an extreme sense of having control of such a responsive and maneuverable machine.
"The machine has no advanced computer aids or autopilot. All elements must be made and kept by the pilot, and navigation is taking place mainly by means of good maps and a stable operating system."
"It has proven itself good in most missions we conduct, in a diversity of widely varying and sometimes extreme, climatic conditions in both home and abroad. From a purely pilot-perspective, Bell 412 is the most versatile machine I have flown," added Stueland.
"Flying hours on each helicopter range between 4,500 hours to 7,000 hours," said Major Bjørnar Strøm, of the helicopter office of Norway's Defense Logistics Organisation.
"The Bell helicopters do not have a limit on how many total hours they can fly as it is with the Lynx. Bell helicopters have some components that have a limit on the number of hours they can be used, but as long as these are changed, these helicopters have a long life."
A replacement for the Bell 412s will not be considered until at least 2018.
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