Company info

13 july 2006 : Heli-Union in Yemen

A new liquefied natural gas (LNG) project is being developed in Yemen. This project consists of building two pipelines between the wells located around Marib and (1) Sana'a, the Yemenite capital city, and (2) the port of Balhaf, near Al Mukalla. There will also be built a liquefaction factory from which LNG will be shipped to overseas markets. The investment estimated for this project is over 2 billion $.

The YEMEN LNG consortium has mobilised a helicopter from Heli-Union in order to carry out:

• Inspection flights along the pipeline to follow up the development of construction and installation works
• Medevac flights

29 june 2006 : Heli-Union Training Center trains UTAIR Russian pilots

UTAIR is the most important helicopter company of the Russian Federation with a fleet of around 175 Russian Mil helicopters.

Utair recently decided to introduce western technology within its fleet and purchased a light twin-engine Eurocopter AS 355N-type helicopter.

In order to operate this new helicopter, Utair contracted Heli-Union Training Center to qualify five of its best helicopter pilots following the required Type Rating program.

Utair's choice reflected Heli-Union's responsiveness to provide an adapted helicopter training program, the availability of a 355N helicopter flight simulator developed by Thales and the previous approval of our helicopter training center and simulator by the Civil Aviation Authority of Russia.

Between April and May 2006, captains Rozhkov, Bykov, Dudnik, Komelkov and Magergut followed a 3-week Type Rating program on both the simulator and a real 355N helicopter at our helicopter training center in Angoulême, France.

As all of them already have significant flight experience on twin-engine helicopters, the helicopter Training program was run very smoothly and successfully completed.

7 December 2005 : Issue of a book about Heli-Union

A book entitled "Heli-Union : Une saga aéronautique au 20e siècle" (only available in French) has just been published by DG Consulting / Air Photographique publishers. The author, Philippe Boulay, has based his story upon canny accounts witnessed by ex- and current Heli-Union's crews, following an initiative of Heli-Union's Crews' Association, as well as contributions from the senior management of the Company.

This book relates the story of Heli-Union since its foundation in 1961 and the activities developed around helicopters, at the core of Heli-Union's business.

The book (see front page below) can be purchased for 35 €.

Have a pleasant reading !

Download the purchase order

7 November 2005 : Heli-Union in Eritrea

Heli-Union rented out an AS355 N Squirrel to the French oil company PERENCO for an offshore drilling campaign in Eritrea (Red Sea). This project was implemented over 10 weeks from the end of August and the aircraft departed to Djibuti on 4 November 2005.

The helicopter and the crew were based at Massawa, the main harbour of this relatively young country - it obtained its independence from Ethiopia in May 1993 - of which the capital city is Asmara, located over 2 000m above sea level. The main difficulty encountered throughout these operations turned out to be the heat, with outside temperatures mostly above 35°C.

It was the first project of Heli-Union in this country and hopefully it will be followed by others.

28 June 2005 : Delivery of the 800th Dauphin AS 365 N3 to Heli-Union

Heli-Union officially took delivery of the 800th Dauphin AS 365 N3 manufactured by Eurocopter at the 2005 Bourget air show (13-19 June).

This new acquisition reflects the following objectives of Heli-Union in regards with our Operations business unit :

• First, to continue to be a key player worldwide in the offshore aerial services in partnership with oil companies;
• Second, to modernise the fleet of Heli-Union (65m € invested over the last 3 years) in order to fulfil our customers' aspirations.

Heli-Union has operated all types of Dauphin helicopter since its foundation in1961 : C, C2, C3, N, N1, N2 and now N3.

Today, Heli-Union's fleet of such helicopters is made up of 4 C2/C3, 8 N, 2 N2 et 5 N3 helicopter-types.

At the beginning of 2006, 2 new AS 365 N3 helicopter will be delivered to Heli-Union to strengthen our fleet of such helicopters.

The 800th N3 will actually be operated in Kazakhstan from this summer onwards on behalf of the local company EURO ASIA AIR, the Chairman of which took part in the present ceremony.

29 april 2005 : Launch of the web site of Heli-Union

Heli-Union is very happy to welcome you on our site and would like to share with you what is, for some of you, a passion, for others a leisure and for us a professional vocation at the core of our three businesses: the helicopter.

The French version of Heli-Union's website was put into line on 29 April 2005. The present English version appeared on 07 June 2005.

The creation and development of this site seek to address various needs uttered by both Heli-Union's personnel and our company's current and potential clients:

• To have a communication tool that is accessible to most of us in order to present the company's core businesses, its know-how, its experience and its fleet of helicopters;
• To get closer to our customers and communicate about our aerial work and air commercial transportation services;
• To communicate towards the national civil aviation authorities that control and regulate Heli-Union's businesses;
• To promote the image of the company, its professionalism and enhance its reputation within the aeronautics industry, especially in regards to helicopter activities;
• To feature the facilities of Heli-Union Training Center, particularly the FNPT II-type flight simulator;
• To introduce our visitors to Heli-Union's fleet and the main technical characteristics of our helicopters;
• To recruit new staff in order to support Heli-Union's growth.

We do hope that this site lives up to the expectations of each of you.

However, do not hesitate to give us your feedback. We shall endeavour, as we did to develop this site, to take your views into account with a view to improving the quality of this tool.

Heli-Union