HeliAir Sweden is due to take delivery of a Cineflex MSII multi-sensor camera, which it says will raise the quality of its infrared inspections for power line customers. Accountable manager and CEO Aram Rubinstein expects to better satisfy his current clients with this technology, and win new business too: “The camera is extremely expensive,” he tells EBAN, “but compared to the other cameras that are out there today, it is a completely different ball game.”

The operator has received approvals from the US State Department, which has taken some time, and Rubinstein is excited to put the new system to work.

The company was in the process of replacing its entire MD500 fleet with EC120s, however this has stalled a little for the time being as some HeliAir Sweden pilots prefer the MDs.

“We are still looking at selling one [MD500] unit; we have a couple of customers carrying out a pre-buy inspection this week,” Rubinstein continues. “At this point in time, the decision has been taken that we will be keeping two MDs to wait and see which tenders we win and don’t win for aerial power line work.

“However, from 2017 visual inspection of the power lines will be conducted with the EC120s and some of these have already begun. We are hopefully going to purchase another EC120 before the end of this year, as well as an AS350B3.”

Business is often aided by inclement weather, as storms can damage power lines. So far this year the weather in Sweden has not been too severe. “But you never know from one day to the next; suddenly there could be low pressure building north of the UK and it comes here and destroys everything in sight,” he explains. “It hasn’t happened this year yet and now it is probably a little too cold over the North Sea for it to happen, but you can still get heavy snowfall that weighs down the power lines; sometimes we have to come and clean that up.

“Everybody predicts that it is going to be the coldest winer for 100 years and looks into the crystal ball, but often it doesn’t happen!”

Due to the fall in oil prices and its impact on the oil and gas industries, the number of pilots looking for jobs has increased, particularly in Norway, but fortunately there is always a shortage of aerial work pilots. Rubinstein has taken on three new pilots in recent months, all of which have been busy deployed on missions with freshly-painted EC120s. The current fleet comprises two ECs, three A Stars, three MD500s and a Huey.