Volga-Dnepr completes its 1,697th delivery of helicopters

Volga-Dnepr Airlines has carried one of Eurocopter’s Super Puma helicopters and two Sikorsky S-92 helicopters from Mount Pleasant in the Falkland Islands and Philadelphia, USA, to Bergen, Norway.

The project was completed in two delivery stages. The Super Puma was loaded onboard one of the airline’s AN-124-100 freighters in Mount Pleasant before the aircraft continued onto the U.S. to pick up two brand new Sikorsky helicopters, which flew into Philadelphia in a good time under their own power to be prepared for transportation to Norway.

Each helicopter was about 16 metres in length and weighed 10 tons. To place all three helicopters in the An-124’s cargo hold some of the aircraft’s components were removed and delivered on the same flight. The operating height of the flight was changed to 8,000 metres instead of the usual 10,000 metres to ensure the correct cabin pressure was maintained throughout the journey in order to protect the helicopter’s onboard equipment. The three helicopters all touched down safely in Bergen.

Volga-Dnepr Airlines has 22 years of experience of carrying helicopters. During this time, it has completed 1,697 flights which have delivered helicopters to the USA, Afghanistan, Germany, the UK, United Arab Emirates and more than 10 other countries around the world.