Helitak Firefighting Equipment, an Australian-based aerial firefighting tank manufacturer, announced on March 6th, 2024, during the opening day of the Aerial Firefighting North America show in Sacramento, California the launch of the Helitak Fire Bucket. The bucket range was initiated due to customer requests and a demand for options in the marketplace. The new range will allow both existing customers and new ones, the option to use both buckets and tanks on their aircraft, manufactured to the same high standards, and give customers a single point of purchase for helicopter tanks and buckets that will be able to be designed, manufactured and serviced by a single company, a first in the aerial firefighting industry.
Two of the tanks, the FB10K bucket, capable of a 2642 gallon capacity designed for the CH-47 Chinook, and the FB1200 bucket capable of holding 317 gallons were on display at the recent HAI Heli Expo in Anaheim in addition to the FT-11K tank on the CH-47, the FT-4500 on several Black Hawks on the show floor and the FT-1400 designed for the light helicopter market.
“Designing and building a next-generation bucket was always going to be the next step in the evolution of our business. Our customers have been asking for a tank from us for many years as there is currently no single supplier for both tanks and buckets in the industry, making us the first one-stop shop for aerial firefighting water suppression equipment. From a maintenance perspective, just like operators aiming to use a single airframe or single manufacturer, it streamlines the process when it comes to replacement parts, service, and repairs, so we hope that this move will strengthen our position in the industry as a leading supplier of firefighting technology,” said Helitak CEO Jason Schellaars.
The new buckets will be capable of utilizing existing onboard Helitak equipment, such as the proprietary drop controller already in use for the tank system, or an optional fitment of a physical drop controller added to flight controls. The bucket will also be capable of multi-stage dropping and capable of extracting a full load of water from a water source in under a minute thanks to the inbuilt Helitak Hover Fill Pump, available in HP2000, HP2500, HP6000 shallow fill, and HP10000 models capable of filling 528 to 1000 gallons in times from 30 seconds to 50 seconds for a full load.
Helitak plans to finish flight testing of new designs in the coming week and will release the buckets before the coming fire season and has begun taking pre-orders for the bucket range.
About Helitak Firefighting Equipment
Helitak Firefighting Equipment is an award-winning world leader in developing external tank solutions for the aerial firefighting industry, founded by Jason Schellaars, an engineer and helicopter pilot who believed it was possible to improve on tanks currently available to the industry. Helitak continues to develop new products and improve the industry’s lightest and most efficient tanks.
