// Digital Bonus Heli-Austria An Alpine Giant With a large and hugely varied fleet, Heli-Austria spans the Alps to provide an almost limitless range of services. 74 Vertical magazine Story by Howard Slutsken Photos by Anthony Pecchi It’s important to have the right tool for the job. Looking at Heli-Austria’s large and diverse fleet of helicop- ters, it’s clear that CEO and chief pilot Roy Knaus has a big toolbox to draw from, packed with the right machines for a wide range of missions. With over two dozen helicopters in the fleet, from the Airbus H125 to the Super Puma, Heli-Austria can handle virtually any kind of assignment. “Basically, we’re doing everything but offshore, and now we’re also into heavy lift,” Knaus told Vertical. Heli-Austria is based in St. Johann im Pongau, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of Salzburg, in the Austrian Alps. The company also operates Heli-Tirol, based in that Austrian state, and Martin Flugrettung – or Martin Air Rescue – which is the country’s helicopter emergency med- ical service (HEMS) provider. There are 150 people working at the company’s headquar- ters and bases, including 30 pilots, and HEMS doctors and paramedic crews. “We have a very broad coverage of the Alps because we have aircraft at nine bases in Austria, Switzerland, and Northern Italy, flying a mix of EMS, sightseeing flights and heli-skiing,” said Knaus. The company has recently added an H130, a helicopter well-suited to sightseeing operations. The aircraft is the first H130 in Austria and Germany, and a second will be added later this year. It joins Heli-Austria’s remarkably varied fleet of MD 902, H125/AS350 B3e, and H135 helicopters, and for medium and heavy-lift missions, it has the Bell 212 and 412, and AS332 L and AS332 L1 Super Pumas.