Kaman has received orders for two additional K-Max helicopters from separate customers and announced it will build a third lot of the heavy-lift, single-engine, single-seat model. The two new helicopters will be delivered in the coming months to Mountain Blade Runner Helicopters of Montrose, Colorado, and St. Louis Helicopter of Sellersburg, Indiana. Both firms said they would use the new helicopters for firefighting and other missions.
St. Louis Helicopter will lease its aircraft through Rainier Heli International. Kaman and Rainier agreed to a deal earlier this year under which Rainer provides K-Max customer leasing. Rainier is the worldwide leasing arm of the Halvorson Group, which has been involved in aviation for more than 50 years and owns and operates over 100 rotary and fixed-wing aircraft used in scenic helicopter tour, utility, and airline operations.
The K-Max was initially certified in 1994 and the production line was shuttered in 2003 after an initial run of 38. A flurry of orders prompted the company to restart new-build production in 2015. First deliveries of new-build helicopters began in 2017. The K-Max features an intermeshing counter-rotating rotor system, is optimized for external load operations, and designed specifically for vertical reference flight. The aircraft can lift up to 6,000 pounds and is powered by a single Honeywell T53-17 turboshaft flat rated to 1,500 shp (takeoff).