Return to the skies – Hamilton, Montana based Rotorcraft Service Center contracted to rebuild, modify helicopters from dismantled parts

When you’re going to put together a $3 million helicopter, step No. 1 is unpacking it from the cardboard boxes.

Last November, a dented, scratched, stripped and completely dismantled Bell 205-A1 chopper arrived at the Rotorcraft Service Center’s http://www.garlickhelicopters.com/ 45,000-square-foot campus just south of Hamilton. It was an injured bird desperately in need of new guts, new skin and… well, new everything.

In thousands of pieces was this 1978 commercial craft, hauled by truck from Boise, Idaho. The cabin was an unpainted shell. No rotors. No moving parts. Nothing about the chopper resembled what it is now, an aircraft breathed new life and a new chance to fly thanks to Rotorcraft’s 20 employees, who’ve spent the last seven months – more than 4,300 hours – rebuilding it.

“It was,” said Rotorcraft president Mark Stinson, “used and abused.”

And shot. Formerly in use by the Argentinean military, this Bell 205-A1 – the commercial cousin of its U.S. military counterpart, the UH-1 Iroquois (or Huey) – came to Hamilton stripped to the metal, its cabin punctured by a bullet.

By JAMIE KELLY of the Missoulian

Full Story: http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009/05/21/news/mtregional/news06.txt