MD Helicopters boosts Aussie support
New Zealand based Eastland Aviation has been awarded exclusive Australian distributorship for MD Helicopters. The group plans to expand its Australian product support and sales representation footprint, building on existing alliances as well as establishing its own Australian base.
Originally Hughes Helicopters, which built the well-known Hughes 300 and 500, the US manufacturing company changed hands first to McDonnell Douglas and then by acquisition to Boeing, which sold the business in 1999 to MD Helicopter Holdings.
IncIncluded in the sale were the MD 500E and MD 530F single-engine helicopters with conventional tail rotors, the MD 520N and MD 600N single-engine helicopters with the Boeing exclusive NOTAR (no tail rotor) system for anti-torque and directional control, and the MD Explorer series of twin-engine, eight-place helicopters.
The NOTAR system replaces conventional tail rotors used for directional control, with a sophisticated aerodynamic solution that uses compressed air and a pressurized tail boom to counter main rotor torque and provide a quieter, safer and simpler steering system.
Besides the MD line, Eastland also represents Cessna, Sikorsky (Schweitzer/Hughes 300) helicopters, and the popular Robinson helicopter product line.
Eastland’s marketing and sales manager Chris Barry says the company’s strategy will now be to strengthen existing key alliances in Australia, and ultimately to establish a sales, product support capability and spares inventory in Queensland or NSW:
“We’re determined to expand our market in Australia, and MD will be getting some demonstrators down. We’d love to get a 902 Explorer to Australia very shortly. But our first priority is to improve product support for the fifteen MD operators in Australia. We already have fast overnight spares response from New Zealand but we also want to set up a spares centre in Australia. We cover Papua New Guinea too but at this stage key project is to support existing operators, and if any of them have aircraft operating in PNG we’ll assist them any way we can.”
