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Displaying items by tag: Helicopters

#Coastguard - The Sligo-based Irish Coast Guard helicopter will have completed more than 300 search and rescue missions in 2015 by the end of this month, setting a new record.

And as Helicopter Investor reports, Rescue 118 and the rest of the Sikorsky S-92 fleet based at Shannon, Dublin and Waterford will have completed at least 877 missions between them by year's end.

"We have invested heavily in our four bases in Ireland so that we can offer a safe, reliable service with the highest levels of availability,” said Chris Hodson of CHC Helicopter, contracted to provide coastguard SAR services in Ireland since 2010.

Published in Coastguard

#Coastguard - Shannon-based Rescue 115's "milestone" year has been highlighted by the operator of Ireland's coastguard helicopter fleet.

In an interview with Aviation Today, CHC general operations manager Chris Hodson said 2014's "significant number of missions" was down to the introduction of state-of-the-art, long-range Sikorsky S92 helicopters across Ireland's four bases.

And in particular, the 310 missions flown by the Shannon chopper for the Irish Coast Guard were "quite an accomplishment for the crew".

Hodson said it was "a real milestone to have one aircraft on one base complete so many missions out into the North Atlantic."

This year, meanwhile, the focus is on providing the helicopters in Shannon, Dublin, Waterford and Sligo with night vision capabilities to enhance rescue efforts under cover of darkness.

Aviation Today has more on the story HERE.

Published in Coastguard

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.