New rescue helicopter finally in service

Nearly three years into its existence and after several delays, Two Bear Air has announced the arrival of its long-awaited custom Bell 429 rescue helicopter.

The search-and-rescue agency, headed by former Flathead County Undersheriff Jordan White and funded by Whitefish venture capitalist Michael Goguen, ordered the helicopter late last year with delivery initially slated for this spring.

Delivery of the helicopter was delayed, however, due to U.S. government technology control requirements.

While much of the equipment was installed in Canada, the helicopter then had to be assembled and flown to the United States for installation of certain equipment, such as thermal imaging apparatus, that cannot be installed outside this country.

The red, white and blue helicopter took more than a year to build and was finally delivered last month.

The base price for the twin-engine helicopter was $5 million, but the addition of a world-class technology package raised the helicopter’s final cost to $8 million.

White said the helicopter has a range of approximately 400 miles and can travel at up to 165 miles per hour.

Among the equipment on the aircraft is a rescue hoist, which requires a twin-engine helicopter, as well as its crowning jewel, a roughly $500,000 Wescam MX-10 imaging system.

“It provides us with high-definition video as well as thermal imagery, and it’s integrated into a mounting system that provides a 3-D overlay of the mapping data over the image for road information, and gives us the option of adding local data from our [geographic information system] for Flathead County, and it also has topographic mapping for search and rescue loaded into it,” White said. “It’s very nice.”

The gyro-stabilized camera calculates the GPS coordinates of whatever it is looking at, and those coordinates are overlaid onto the map. So if crew members locate a person or object from the air, the camera will tell them the precise coordinates of what they have found.

The camera can also lock onto those coordinates so the pilot can maneuver the helicopter around the area for a better angle, but the camera will automatically remain aimed at the target.

“It’s a relief that it’s finally here,” White said. “To know that it actually exists for the number of meetings and phone calls and trips, it’s great to finally see the whole package put together. It was a lot of vendors that all had to come together with engineers and combine all their useful information and data into one helicopter at one time.”

White said all the equipment has worked precisely as Two Bear was told it would, but  the learning curve to operate the system has been steep. To climb that steep curve, those who will be using the helicopter have spent the last month being trained by the vendors.

“The engineering that’s gone into this has tried to simplify it and to make the camera and mapping system as automated as possible,” he said. “So there are custom functions that can make it more precise, but it is built to revert to automatic functions.”

White said that beyond the technologically advanced aircraft and, previously, a smaller, single-engine McDonnell Douglas MD 500 E, Goguen has provided operational funding in the millions of dollars.

“You can’t put a value on saving even one life,” Goguen said. “Montana is a place where we help our neighbors and I feel privileged to be able to give this gift to the Flathead Valley community.”

Since the inception of what would eventually become Two Bear Air, it has assisted in several search-and-rescue missions, including the rescue of a duck hunter stuck in mud and ice up to his chest at Upper Stillwater Lake in November 2012.

The agency has also assisted in the recent search for another duck hunter missing since Oct. 21.

Beginning in January 2012, missions were flown with a Bell 407 helicopter until it was crash landed on the slopes of Mount Aeneas in April. No one was injured in the accident, but the loss of the 15-year-old aircraft prompted the purchase of the McDonnell Douglas helicopter in July. It has been in use ever since.

The ever-evolving agency originally was founded in 2011 by White, along with a few others, as Flathead Emergency Aviation Resources, or FEAR. A change to Glacier Emergency Aviation Resources, or GEAR, was briefly considered, but the name of Two Bear Air was finally chosen, mirroring Goguen’s Two Bear Management, which also employs White.

Goguen offered White a job at his management company in March 2012, leading to White’s resignation from the Sheriff’s Office. It was then that he offered White complete funding for the fledgling search-and-rescue agency.

White is currently the executive director of Two Bear Air and is joined by Diane Conradi, the agency’s general counsel, and Jim Rucker — its chief financial officer and tactical flight coordinator. White and local pilot Jim Bob Pierce serve as the agency’s pilots.

Two Bear Air has working partnerships with the Sheriff’s Office, Kalispell Regional Medical Center’s ALERT helicopter, Flathead County Search and Rescue, North Valley Search and Rescue, Flathead Nordic Ski Patrol and other local search-and-rescue resources.

All search-and-rescue missions involving the Sheriff’s Office and members of other local agencies are directed by Sheriff Chuck Curry. While flying missions, Two Bear Air pilots are deputies of the Sheriff’s Office. The helicopter’s pilots are dispatched by the Sheriff’s Office.

Those interested in getting a look at the new helicopter can see it on display at the new Cabela’s store in north Kalispell over the weekend. Crew members will be available to answer questions about the aircraft and the program.

For more information or to request an educational visit by the helicopter and its crew at a school or service organization, visit www.twobearair.org.

Reporter Jesse Davis may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at jdavis@dailyinterlake.com.