Erickson Air-Crane

I heard that the air-cranes were leaving soon, so I went off to take a look!

I joined some fire-fighters inspecting the Georgia Peach which weighs over 10,000 kg and has a rotor blade diameter of 50m!

The Cockpit

The aircraft was designed in the 1960's and little has changed in the cockpit since then! There are exposed wires, old instruments, and heavy metal everywhere.

If you look carefully, there are fans placed all around the cabin. One of the pilots told me that when you are sitting in your fire-proof suit on top of a fire it gets very hot in there!

(He also told me that the next model of the chopper had air-conditioning!)

You can see Bankstown Tower and ATIS dialled up on the radio!

What a view from
the rear-facing payload
operator's seat!
The pilot said that that
joystick was the first
fly-by-wire system ever built!

Here's the control rods
going up to the rotors.

Power and Rotor systems

Payload

Tank capacity is approx 10,000 litres of water + 265 litres of foam.

(The pilot told me that they sometimes accidently fill up from sewerage ponds... "You don't know until you're almost full... then the smell hits you!"

Tail

The tail rotor is 4.8m diameter and
mounted well above head-height.

Yes, those are steps
up the tail boom to
the tail-rotor hub!

Conclusion

Wow!

More helicopter photos

Please leave us a Hooremoan:

Date	Name	Hooremoan
24 Feb	David	Fantastic once again! Are those fans for the avionics or the crew?
10 May	Ron	Great thing for fighting fires, but looks a little tied up at the moment
15 Aug	Valerie	My soon to be husband, Bill Neckels, flies for Erickson. He's currently overseas.
11 Sep	jamie	thats fantstic helicopter
10 Feb	Mike	The Air crane is my absolute favourite aircraft to fly on my flight Simulator 9.
24 Sep	rw	a rare insight wow!! awsome
9 Nov	Mort	This stuff is great. I was an explorer and i was loved watching these air cranes do their stuff.
16 Nov	Stu	I fly the crane for a living...and it is all that!
16 Nov	Stu	Say hi to Bill Neckels for me, we flew in L.A. on the fires last year!!
8 Feb	steve@andresconstruction.com	Adam's
10 Apr	Lizzyboy	Flew this in flight sim but this is unbeleivable - 50m?
10 Jun	Dirk	Absolutely great pics ! Would you happen to have any unpublished ones ? I'm building a radio controlled scale model of the Aircrane and would like to detail it as much as possible.
9 Aug	BobbyB96@yahoo.com	This is an awesome site! I am a lead Mfg. Engr working on the fabrication of the Main Rotor Blades, this is a beast of a machine.... at least that's what the blades show.
16 Jun	Thanh	I knew this bird back 38 years ago, it was one of the fleet of Skycrane, they were in the service with the US Army to support mobilzation in VN war.
29 Dec	John	I had the oportunity to look over the brother of that one at the State Training Centre Brakunga South Australia and they are an awsome sight up close and those are great shots congrats mate.
30 Jul	rachael	this guy...bill neckels... is my dad.....he just currently stopped working for this company.....but when he did he was one of their best experienced pilots hoolding over 14000 hours. we have a little airplane at home that we fly n all the time....he's pretty cool. =]
24 Sep	Seth	Bill Neckels is the best guy you will ever meet he is very good friend and a pilot instructor him and his daughter are the coolest people you will ever know
25 Sep	Lori	Bill Neckels is a really nice guy he has shown my son Seth a lot about flying. My son and I wont to thank Bill for all the things he has done. His daughter Rachael is a very good kid. We enjoy being aroud them
13 Sep	phillett61@verizon.net	wow what a aircraft a dream is to fly one.

11 Mar