Intercompany
News
Volume 30 No. 2
Columbia Lifts 747 Wing
Sections to Calif. Residence
Wings over Malibu?
The wing sections of a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet
flew through California skies again recently, despite
having no engines – or even an airplane – attached
to them.
Columbia Helicopters lifted four sections of
wings from the Camarillo airport to a private resi-
dence 12 flight miles away in Malibu, California.
The sections will make up sections of a modern
“green” home’s roof, currently under construction.
Continued on page 4
Summer 2008
Chris Hankland Takes Over
Quality Department for CHI
Barry Hatfield Retires After 33 Years
Not only is there a passing of the torch in the
company’s Quality Department, but there are also
some mighty big shoes to fill.
After 33 years with Columbia Helicopters, Barry
Hatfield is retiring, having started out working in the
Sheet Metal Shop and worked his way through vari-
ous positions within the Maintenance Department.
Initially appointed Chief Inspector in 2000, he has
served as Director of Quality since 2005. Barry will
be succeeded by Quality Control Supervisor Chris
Hankland. Both Barry and Chris have been in-
volved in a transition process that has lasted several
months.
The Quality Department is about providing an
audit function that is critical to the company’s efficient
performance and safety, which includes meticulous
documentation, record keeping and monitoring of
licenses.
“Barry has led us through some big, big changes
in our inspection processes,” said Hankland. “In
Continued on page 2
CHI’s Fire Season Roars to
Life As California Burns
An early and potentially significant fire season
roared to life in mid-June, as fires on both coasts
occupied as many as eight of Columbia Helicopters’
aircraft at one time.
Responding to severe fire conditions across the
United States, Columbia Helicopters sent aircraft
to assist in fighting forest fires on both coasts. The
company’s fire season typically builds as summer
progresses, but a series of intense dry lightning
storms ignited over 1,000 fires in Central and North-
Continued on page 6
Hatfield Retires
Continued from Page 1

addition to his regular day-to-day work, he’s

been working through the processes in the
transfer of the Type Certificates for both of our
primary aircraft, as well as for the application
of the Production Certificate. He’s also been
instrumental in maintaining our Air Carrier
Certificate, and helped the company adopt ISO
standards so that we could meet the require-
ments for certain outside markets.”
Chris expects to continue on much the
same course laid down by Barry, but also ex-
pects the position to change as the company’s
Quality Department requirements evolve.
The company is becoming increasingly
diverse, partly as a result of the acquisi- Executive Vice President Pete Lance congratulates Director of
tion of the TC and eventually the PC,” said Quality Barry Hatfield (right) on his retirement after 33 years.
Chris. “As a result, diversification within
the department will be focusing (the atten-
tion of) personnel in specific areas to meet the company’s global requirements. This diversification will create
specific disciplines within the department.”
“I believe that Quality Systems need to be perceived as adding value to what we do, and not just seen as
a control system,” added Chris. “We need to continually adjust our programs to more closely meet changing
global quality systems requirements.”
Chris started working with Columbia in the Engine Shop in
1995, after gaining his A & P license while working at another re-
pair station. Before coming to Columbia, Chris initially planned on
following in his parent’s path as missionaries. Consequently, he
earned a BS degree in Missionary Aviation Technology at Moody
Bible Institute, and also earned his commercial multi-engine pilot
certificate license.
From the Engine Shop, Chris moved to working in the field
as part of a 107 crew working primarily in Alaska. Since Chris
speaks Spanish fluently, he became part of N241CH’s crew in
Peru throughout 1998.
After a short departure to teach fixed-wing pilots at a flight
school, Chris returned to CHI and moved into the Hydraulic Shop
where he eventually became the Swing Shift Lead.
With his experience in Peru, Chris continued to work with
then Peru Project Manager Reto Schwarz, helping with Peruvian
airworthiness certification on the company’s helicopters there.
Shortly after completing that project, he was approached
by Barry Hatfield who said his skills would be valuable within
Quality Control. Chris became a Quality Inspector in 2003 before
becoming Quality Control Supervisor in 2005.
New Director of Quality, Chris Hankland
One thing Chris appreciates is that Columbia is a large company
that still has a family atmosphere. He also appreciates that the
company values the individuality of its employees. “There’s so much talent within this company,” said Chris.
“There’s someone in this company with a solution to any problem we might have.”
Barry, who also worked as a field mechanic, and in the Air Frame Shop and Engineering Department, will
continue to do consulting work with Columbia after his retirement.

A Growing Enterprise
Brandon Van Atta

A full test cell schedule, a day and swing shift, and

a Lean production chart are what you will find today in
Columbia Helicopter’s Engine Shop. Since the first work
order for Croman Helicopters in 1984, under the direc-
tion of Bob Neihart, Columbia’s Engine Shop has been
the maintenance choice for customers across the globe.
The shop has been instrumental in setting the baseline
for CT58 test cells from Canada to the Middle East. In
the early days, Bob Neihart and several fellow employ-
ees decided that because the CT58 engines were being
used in so many aircraft around the world, that we could
use our capabilities to grow a customer base.
Today, as the new engine shop supervisor, Greg
Weinfurter works hard to meet the demands of both our
fleet of Columbia 107-IIs and Model 234s and the ever
increasing flow of customer products. With engine main-
tenance coming in from the Royal Malaysian Air force,
Tunisia, Argentina, and Saudi Arabia; the shop is creat-
ing quite a place for themselves in the world customer
market.
For years, customers such as Heli One and Vector
Aerospace have used the engine shop as a provider of
choice for engine accessories, one of these being the T-
58 engine fuel controls. Columbia Helicopters operates
one of only three shops in the world currently maintain-
ing overhaul capabilities on the T58 engine series fuel
controls. This, along with the unique ability to adapt to
the demands of the customer, has kept the engine shop Engine Shop Mechanic Mike Nelson works on a
growing in outside customer business. Lycoming AL-5512 turbine engine.
A recent achievement for Columbia’s engine shop
is the introduction of the Lean program and how it has
already improved the shop’s ability to complete customer engines and components. The CT58 shop has been
split into different groups referred to as “cells”, and the work is designed to flow through each cell in a specific
time frame. Using the “One Piece Flow” principle of Lean, the shop can maximize the space and personnel to
increase the outflow of work. Because of the inherent parts problems we face in our industry, the Lean program
is being used primarily to eliminate waste in the teardown and maintenance phases of the engines. This is
mostly shown by the decreased time it takes to provide the customer with an engine quote. Previously, 30 days
were normal to complete an engine quote, but 8 days is the new time it takes when applying the Lean tactics.
A new direction for the customer element of Columbia’s business is to develop repair and overhaul ca-
pabilities for the T55-GA-714 engine. These engines are the current US Army upgraded power plant for the
CH47 Chinook helicopters, and they are being installed on most foreign Chinook Helicopters as well. With the
previous establishment of the T55-L-712 Honeywell Service Center, the market holds many options for future
business in this area. While this type of endeavor holds several challenges for the future, it will undoubtedly
produce a healthy return for the company.
From 1984 to today, the engine shop at Columbia Helicopters has been instrumental in providing an
outstanding service to our customers. As the company moves forward in adapting to market changes, so will
grow the capabilities of the engine shop. What once was an idea has grown to become an established source
of revenue. The talent and the experience within the work center leads the way forward for an engine line that
most would consider a legacy platform. They are a piece that creates Columbia’s customer maintenance repu-
tation; to not only bring reliability, but to be the “Powerful Difference” in the industry.

747 Wings Soar Over Malibu
Continued from Page 1

Homeowner Francie Rehwald and architect David

Hertz came up with the idea of using as much of the
747 as possible in the construction of the home. The
wing sections will be used as part of the roof, complete
with operational flaps and lights. The nose section will
be tipped upright to create a meditation pavilion and the
upper and lower first class section will become a guest
house. Other portions of the plane will be used in the
main building or the art studio.
Crews were able to dismantle most of the airplane
for delivery, but the wing sections were simply too large
to be trucked up narrow, winding roads to the building
site. Two root sections of the wings weighed 18,000-
pounds each, and the two tip sections each weighed in
at 11,000-pounds.
Enter Columbia Helicopters. The company used
one of its Columbia Model 234 Chinook helicopters to
conduct the lift, carrying each section across approxi-
mately 12 miles of agricultural land and into the Santa
Monica Mountains. Some traffic stoppages occurred as
the lift crossed heavily travelled roads near the Highway
101 freeway.
Columbia Helicopters, the world leader in heavy-lift
helicopter operations, has conducted a wide variety of
lift projects in the company’s 51 years of operations.
One might think that the company has lifted just about
everything imaginable.
Project Manager Jerry Martin has now become the
official house mover for Columbia, having worked on
delivering pre-fabricated sections of a home in Washing-
ton’s San Juan Islands, having moved part of the Mus-
tang Ranch “house” near Reno, Nevada, and now the
747 Wing Home in Malibu.

Above: N239CH lifts off from the Camarillo

Airport with a tip section from a Boeing 747
Jumbo Jet. Left: Columbia’s Project Manager
Jerry Martin (center) discusses the wing lift with
Champion Crane’s Bob Cullen (left) and Gen-
eral Contractor Ron Senso.

Columbia Helicopters Moves To A Paperless Cockpit
Electronic Clipboards Are Expected to Mean Greater Accuracy & Efficiency
The pen may be mightier than the sword, but is it truly an effective tool if no one – including the author -
can read what is written?
For decades, Columbia’s copilots have recorded information from every load lifted by one of the company’s
helicopters. This could include
total weight, number of logs in
the turn or a description of the
load among other entries. The
problem came when the copilot
would try to record this informa-
tion using a pen or pencil on a
clipboard.
“We are trying to go to a
paperless cockpit, and moving
away from the days of needing
to decipher chicken scratch,”
said Operations Administer Dan
Riches. “If it was particularly
bumpy, sometimes even the
person who wrote the figures
couldn’t read them.”
Enter the eClip, an electronic
clipboard that is essentially a
specially designed tablet com-
puter that runs software de-
signed and written by Computer
Programmer Mark Poole, who
has also flown for Columbia
as a Command Pilot. The unit
is being introduced in most of
the company’s 107-IIs, and will Columbia Command Pilot Steve Wilson practices using the eClip while with
someday move into all of the N185CH on fire standby.
company’s aircraft. The software
is currently configured for logging operations, but will eventually include data fields for fire fighting, construction
and petroleum exploration support.
The new software essentially takes away all writing, instead relying on simple taps on a touch-sensitive
screen to record the data. As the information is entered, it updates totals from all previous entries, providing an
accurate, complete statement of the work at the end of the day.
“Our goal for eClip is accuracy and efficiency,” added Dan. “The accuracy comes from not needing to add
long columns of scribbled numbers by hand, and the efficiency comes from not needing to spend the time add-
ing long columns of those scribbled numbers. It also decreases the processing time for office personnel since
the information is uploaded into the operations database.”
The Microsoft Windows-based software is pre-programmed with crew names and aircraft information. All
a pilot needs to do is enter some of the information at the beginning of the project – such as the job number
and hooker’s names on a logging project - and the software remembers and continually adds and updates the
newly entered data. At the end of each day, the computer is connected to a port in the service van, and the
daily report is uploaded to the office automatically.
The software can be programmed to produce reports with a wide variety of data: turns per hour, pounds per
hour, even the amount of time spent on each turn. “With the amount of data being recorded, there are prob-
ably ways to interpret the data that we haven’t yet considered,” said Dan.

Fire Season
Continued from Page 1

ern California. While Columbia’s crews have

also worked in Nevada, New Mexico, Florida and
even near Virginia’s Great Dismal Swamp, the
majority of fire fighting work this season has oc-
curred in bone-dry California.
“It’s still early in the fire season, but we are
making every aircraft we currently have available
to assist in fighting these fires,” said Mike Fahey,
Columbia Helicopters’ President. “We will support
the efforts of the fire fighting crews on the ground
in any way the Incident Commander and his
team ask us to help.”
“Our aircraft are so versatile that it’s like
having a special “multi-tool” available on the fire
lines,” Fahey added. “We’ll continue to make as
many aircraft available as possible, but this looks
like the beginning of another devastating fire
season throughout the United States.”
The majority of the company’s aircraft are
equipped with the SEI Torrentula Bambi Bucket
with Powerfill System. These buckets carry four
high volume pumps that can fill in less than 90
seconds, from sources as shallow as 18-inches.
The Model 234 Chinook carries a 2,600-gallon
bucket, and the Columbia 107-II carries a 1,300-
gallon bucket. Because these buckets are carried
at the end of a 160-foot line, the pilots are able
to use tree-lined or restricted-area water sources
not available to tanked aircraft or those using
traditional buckets.
On one fire in southern Nevada, the Torrentula Bucket with Powerfill System was deployed despite the re-
quest for a tanked helicopter with a snorkel. “The Forest Service needed an aircraft capable of drawing water
from a shallow source,” said Operations Administrator Dan Riches. “We showed them once again how there is
nothing that a tanked helicopter can do that we can’t do as well or better.”
N6672D might hold the early season record for duration on fires, as it spent several weeks working fires in
Florida. Its crew received high praise for their work on those fires
from the Florida Department of Forestry.
Also recognized for praise was N185CH, which has working on
the Medocino Lightning Complex of fires for the California Depart-
ment of Forestry. The CDF noted that by using the Torrentula
Bucket with Powerfill System, ’85 had made FOUR drops to one
made by a tanked helicopter.
Since May – as of this writing – N6672D has assisted in fight-
ing seven fires across the nation, making it the busiest fire aircraft
so far. N245CH, N184CH and N6675D have each worked on four
fires.
Above and Right: In April, N184CH prepared for the upcoming
fire season by testing their SEI Torrentula Bambi Bucket with Pow-
erfill System in a shallow, tree-lined stream.

CHI Recovers 52 Wrecked Vehicles
It might have looked like one of those coin operated crane
games at the grocery store, but in this case the person behind
the controls didn’t get to keep anything he picked up.
In late May, N87CH lifted 52 wrecked cars and trucks from
Lookout Point in Butte County, California. The area - with
steep cliffs - had become a popular dumping ground for auto-
mobiles no longer wanted by owners. Butte County recently
acquired the property and removal of the vehicles is part of
an effort to turn the area into a managed view point. Photos
courtesy of Butte County Public Works.

Columbia Clears Trees

From Canal Right of Way
When it comes to clearing a right of way, there
are few companies that can compete with Columbia
Helicopters.
Earlier this Spring, Pacific Gas and Electric in
California hired Columbia to remove “danger trees”
from the right of way along their South Yuba Canal.
This canal provides water for power and agriculture
in nearby Nevada City and Grass Valley.
Representatives from PGE and the Forest
Service selected the removal trees based solely on
their potential for damaging the canal if they fell.
Trees were removed from above and below the
canal.
As the helicopter flew the logs, the canal was
drained to allow other needed repairs. Working
under a tight deadline, Columbia used both a Chi-
nook (N239CH) and a Columbia 107-II (N184CH)
to remove all marked timber before the water was
restored through the flume.

It’s Picnic Time!
Get out your summer clothes; it’s time
for the annual Columbia Helicopters com-
pany picnic. The 2008 picnic is being held
on Saturday, August 23.
As in the past,
this year’s pic-
nic will be held at Champoeg State Park,
about a 10-minute drive from Columbia’s
Aurora, Oregon head-
quarters. There are
going to be games
for the kids AND for
adults, as well as plenty of food and fun.
As always, there is going to be a great prize
drawing… for those purchasing a $10 ticket.
Like last year, the one big winner will still be
able to take a cruise to Mexico, Alaska or the
Caribbean, OR he or she can choose to ap-
ply the cost of the cruise to Intercompany News is published by Columbia
Helicopters, Inc. It is written for employees
ANY vacation! Take your whole of the company and serves as a direct line of
communication among all headquarters and
field personnel. Articles and article ideas are
family to Disneyland, lie on a invited. The company grants permission to
any other publication to reprint articles pro-
secluded beach in Hawaii, or vided credit is given to Columbia Helicopters.
The company reserves the right to publish

combine the prize with some of

any material received unless marked not
for publication. Send correspondence to
Intercompany News, Columbia Helicopters,
your frequent Inc., P.O. Box 3500, Portland, OR 97208.

flyer miles to Todd Petersen Vice President, Marketing

really enjoy the
vacation of a
lifetime! We’ve
arranged it so that your
chances of winning a prize E-mail: info@colheli.com
are about 1 in 6!
Dan Sweet Editor, Media Services Manager
Marci Abel Editorial Assistant
Aurora Airport, Aurora, Oregon
Tel: (503) 678-1222
Fax: (503) 678-5841
Internet: www.colheli.com
P.O. Box 3500, Portland, OR 97208
An Equal Opportunity Employer