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On Sunday September 12th 2011, the H.W. Farren Company completed the transportation of nine VH-71US-101/EH-101 helicopters

September 12, 2011

On Sunday September 12th 2011, the H.W. Farren Company completed the transportation of nine VH-71US-101/EH-101 helicopters to Department of National Defense in care of IMP Aerospace Enfield Nova Scotia Canada. With numerous meeting and planning we designed and fabricated special wheel cradles that would safely and efficiently transport the aircraft. The cradles were designed by Robert Carroll, and fabricated under his direction by our Head Mechanic Joseph Dukin, and Robert Dukin. These cradles were tested to a weight over 40,000 pounds a safety factor in which we design and fabricate our equipment of more than twice the weight of the full up aircraft.

Special surveys were conducted by our agent and pilot car service for Quebec Nova. In addition our oversize manager Dave Vaillancourt personally recertified the route of the first four aircraft from Owego New York to Enfield Nova Scotia.

We were tasked with not only moving the nine aircraft but also numerous parts and support equipment loads from Owego New york and Patuxent Naval Air Station Maryland to Enfield. These shipments were coordinated by our operations staff under the direction of Michael Macaione, Betty Pepper, Heather Collins, and Joseph Antonucci.

Philip Antonucci and Glenn Wargo met with Lockheed Martin Systems Integration people numerous times to plan the transport of the entire project beginning in November of 2010 and completing with our accepted proposal by IMP Aerospace in May of 2011.

With each transport of the VH-71 aircraft from Owego to Enfield , Glenn would rendezvous at Enfield to oversee, and perform the actions of load captain to safely off load each aircraft. The first aircraft was transported by our Vincent Cataldo and the remaining eight were transported by our Derek Smith.

As we completed the last of the first four aircraft, Glenn had meetings along with Mr. Harley Rogers of IMP with Nova Scotia Government and Law Enforcement officials to secure the next challenging part of the project the transportation of five full up VH-71 helicopters. Routes were certified and re-examined to assure a safe and efficient transport of these aircraft.

These last five could not be disassembled and were loaded on a barge transported to Baltimore off loaded and placed on an ACL RORO Vessel for transport to Halifax then reloaded onto barges for transport to Canadian Forces Depot Bedford.

On Friday September 9th we loaded the first of the last five aircraft. These aircraft stood 20’ high on the trailer, 15’ wide, with 26’ of overhang off the rear of our specially modified aircraft transportation trailer, at the Canadian Forces Depot in Bedford. On Saturday morning at sunrise we transported the first of these aircraft, with the assistance of the Halifax Regional Municipality Police, The Canadian Forces Military Police, and the RCMP. On that Saturday we transported three of these aircraft with closure of parts of the Queens Highway that allowed us to go the opposite way to clear infra-structure.

On Sunday morning September 12th we transported the fourth and on Sunday afternoon the fifth and final aircraft. During the entire project we completed the mission from its beginnings in June to completion in September with zero incidents. This was to the satisfaction of IMP Aerospace, DND Canada, and Lockheed Martin Systems Integration.