Canadian Helicopters

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Canadian Helicopters Limited
Canadian-helicopters logo.jpg
C-gnzm.jpg
Porcupine Caribou herd filming project in the Richardson Ranges - Inuvik, NT (July 2019)
IATA ICAO Call sign
—CDN [a] CANADIAN [a]
FoundedOkanagan Helicopters (1947)
Commenced operations St. John's, Newfoundland (1987)
AOC # Quebec: 11988 [1]
Operating bases AB, BC, MB, NB, NL, NT, NS, NU, QC
Fleet size88 [2]
Headquarters Les Cèdres, Quebec, Canada
Website www.canadianhelicopters.com

Canadian Helicopters Limited, formerly a part of the Canadian operations of CHC Helicopter Corporation, operates 88 [2] aircraft from 22 [3] bases across Canada and provides a broad range of helicopter services to support the following activities: emergency medical evacuation; infrastructure maintenance; utilities; oil and gas; forestry; mining; construction; and air transportation. Canadian Helicopters also operates an advanced flight school; provides third party repair and maintenance services; and provides helicopter services in the United States in support of specialty operations including forest fire suppression activities and geophysical exploration programs.

Contents

History

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Commercial helicopter flying began in British Columbia in the summer of 1947. Three former Royal Canadian Air Force officers, pilots Carl Agar and Barney Bent, and engineer Alf Stringer, were operating a fixed-wing charter company, Okanagan Air Services, out of Penticton. In July 1947 they raised enough money to purchase a Bell 47-B3 and pay for their flying and maintenance training.

Okanagan Air Services moved to Vancouver in 1949, was renamed Okanagan Helicopters and, by 1954, had become the largest commercial helicopter operator in the world.

Toronto Helicopters was founded by Len Routledge and Douglas Dunlop. It was a pioneer in air ambulance services in Ontario and operated helicopters for the Ontario Ministry of Health. [4] [5] [6]

Sealand Helicopters was founded by Newfoundland and Labrador businessman Craig Dobbin in February 1977.

In 1987, Dobbin headed a group that purchased Okanagan Helicopters and Toronto Helicopters and merged them with his own company, Sealand Helicopters to form Canadian Helicopters. [7]

Until November 2000, Canadian Helicopters was the domestic operating arm of Canadian Helicopters International, a wholly owned subsidiary of CHC Helicopter. In 2000, Canadian Helicopters was divested by way of a management buy-out. The company continued operations as Canadian Helicopters until it was renamed HNZ Group after acquiring that company. In December 2017, the company was taken private as Canadian Helicopters Limited. [8]

As of August 2025, Canadian Helicopters Limited has an air operator's certificate, 11988, in Les Cèdres, Quebec. [1] [2]

Bases

As of August 2025 the following are bases in Canada: [3]

Province / territoryCityAirportNotes
Alberta Edmonton Edmonton International Airport Executive office
Fort McMurray Fort McMurray International Airport
Grande Prairie Grande Prairie Airport
British Columbia Fort St. John Fort St. John Airport
Penticton Penticton Regional Airport Flight school
Smithers Smithers Airport
Terrace Northwest Regional Airport Terrace-Kitimat
Manitoba Portage la Prairie Portage la Prairie/Southport Airport Department of National Defence training and maintenance support, KF Defence Programs (Allied Wings)
New Brunswick Fredericton Fredericton International Airport
Newfoundland and Labrador Bishop's Falls
Goose Bay Goose Bay Airport
Pasadena
Northwest Territories Inuvik Inuvik (Mike Zubko) Airport
Norman Wells Norman Wells Airport
Yellowknife Yellowknife Airport Acasta HeliFlight
Nova Scotia Halifax Halifax Stanfield International Airport Emergency medical services
Nunavut Cambridge Bay Cambridge Bay Airport
Iqaluit Iqaluit Airport
Sanirajak Sanirajak Airport Previously known as Hall Beach
Quebec Montreal Montréal/Les Cèdres Heliport Corporate head office, heliport operated by Canadian Helicopters
Radisson La Grande Rivière Airport Robert-Bourassa generating station, Whapchiwem Canadian Helicopters
Sept-Îles Sept-Îles Airport

Heliports

Canadian Helicopters Limited operates the following heliports: [9]

Fleet

As of August 2025, Transport Canada listed the following helicopter fleet as being registered to Canadian Helicopters Limited - Hélicoptères Canadiens Limitée of Quebec: [2]

Canadian Helicopters Fleet
AircraftNo. of aircraftVariantsNotes [10] [11]
Aerospatiale AS 355 7 AS 355-N Twin engine, listed at Canadian Helicopters as an Airbus, 4 passengers
Bell 206 4 LongRanger Single engine, 6 passengers
Bell 212 8-Twin engine
Bell 407 6-Single engine, 6 passengers
Bell 412 3 412EP Twin engine, not listed at the Canadian Helicopters site
Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil
(Aerospatiale AS350)		4834 - AS350 B2
14 - AS350 B3 		Single engine, listed at Canadian Helicopters as an Airbus, 5 passengers
Eurocopter EC120 4 EC120B Colibri Single engine, listed at Canadian Helicopters as an Airbus, 4 passengers
Eurocopter EC135 1 EC135 T2+ Twin engine, listed at Canadian Helicopters as an Airbus, 6 passengers
Sikorsky S-61 3 S-61N Twin engine
Sikorsky S-76 41 - S-76A
2 - S-76C
1 - S-76D 		Twin engine, listed at Canadian Helicopters as S-76A++ (9 passengers), S-76C+ (8 passengers) and S-76D (8 passengers)
Total88

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 Not official

References

  1. 1 2 Transport Canada (29 August 2025), Civil Aviation Services (CAS) AOC . wwwapps.tc.gc.ca.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Canadian Civil Aircraft Register: Quick Search Result for Canadian Helicopters". Transport Canada . Retrieved August 29, 2025.
  3. 1 2 "Our Locations" . Retrieved August 29, 2025.
  4. ↑ "ATAC mourns the passing Len Routledge". Air Transport Society of Canada. Archived from the original on September 4, 2017. Retrieved September 3, 2017.
  5. ↑ "Leonard Victor Routledge Obituary". The Toronto Star. June 1, 2013. Retrieved September 4, 2017.
  6. ↑ "Douglas Weir Dunlop Obituary". The Toronto Star. April 29, 2014.
  7. ↑ "Canadian helicopter operators shake up" (PDF). flightglobal.com. May 23, 1987.
  8. ↑ HNZ Group Inc. "HNZ Group Inc. to be acquired by President and CEO Don Wall and PHI, Inc". www.newswire.ca. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
  9. ↑ Canada Flight Supplement. Effective 0901 Z 16 July 2020 to 0901Z 10 September 2020.
  10. ↑ "Single Engine Aircraft" . Retrieved August 29, 2025.
  11. ↑ "Twin Engine Aircraft" . Retrieved August 29, 2025.
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