Air Shasta Rotor & Wing, Inc.

Air Shasta Rotor & Wing, Inc., doing business as North Valley Helicopters, is a woman-owned small disadvantaged business (WOSB) that provides helicopter flight operations, aircraft maintenance, and aerial firefighting support to federal land management and fire agencies as a prime contractor. The vendor operates from Redding, California and has held over three decades of federal contracting experience delivering rotorcraft services across the western United States.

The customer base is heavily concentrated in two federal agencies. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) accounts for 96 awards (covering 71% of the award count) with $55.8 million in combined potential value, primarily delivery orders for aircraft maintenance, preflight checks, and helicopter flight support under standing IDIQs. The Department of the Interior (DOI) drives most of the dollar value—the Interior Business Center and related DOI offices hold 4 awards valued at $71.3 million combined, anchored by a newly awarded $11 million BPA for on-call Type III helicopter flight services (effective May 1, 2025) and the existing $49.5 million On-Call Type III Helicopter Flight Services IDIQ (May 1, 2022–April 30, 2027). The Bureau of Land Management Nevada Region contributes 26 awards totaling $1.8 million, mostly for wild horse and burro census flights and aerial seeding. This concentration reflects the vendor's specialization: North Valley Helicopters' portfolio centers on aircraft maintenance and preflight/through-flight inspections (63 awards under NAICS 481211, Other Support Activities for Air Transportation), wildland fire suppression and aerial firefighting (32 awards under PSC Natural Resources/Conservation), and on-call helicopter operations (39 awards for passenger and freight charter flights).

North Valley Helicopters operates 100 percent as a prime contractor with no subcontractor footprint in the recent award record, delivering work internally using company-owned and operated aircraft. The Service Contract Inventory shows minimal SCI-reportable activity—$2.2 million in FY2022 across 3.2 FTEs under prime records—reflecting the vendor's reliance on firm fixed-price delivery orders and BPA calls for rotorcraft operations rather than cost-reimbursable service contracts subject to SCI reporting. Government-paid rates in the SCI record run $324.52/hr uniformly across records, a blended metric obscuring the fact that rotorcraft-operations work is priced per aircraft or per-hour block-charter rates rather than hourly labor billing.

The vendor's IDV portfolio spans six federal vehicles. The Type 3 Helicopter Support Services 2023–2032 IDIQ with NIFC ($20 million ceiling, multiple award, through December 31, 2032) has generated 12 task orders worth $3.7 million and anchors the vendor's fire-suppression and rotorcraft-support work, with recent orders in 2025 and 2026 ranging from $3,750 to $3.1 million. The On-Call Type III Helicopter Flight Services IDIQ with DOI ($49.5 million ceiling, multiple award, through April 30, 2027) supports wildfire suppression, search and rescue, and wildlife monitoring across the western U.S., with active delivery orders issued for aerial seeding, wild horse census flights, and emergency stabilization work. The new DOI/Interior Business Center On-Call Type III Helicopter Flight Services BPA ($11 million ceiling, May 1, 2025–April 30, 2030) extends coverage for aerial capture, eradication, and trapping of animals and wild horse and burro operations. The vendor also holds a $5.75 million Aviation Maintenance Services IDC with NIFC (set aside for small business, through 2022 with extension through June 30, 2027) and a $732,835 Aviation Maintenance Services IDIQ with NIFC (single award, through June 30, 2027) covering scheduled and unscheduled maintenance checks, preflight inspections, and engine trend monitoring on SD3-60 Sherpa and Bell 206L-3 LongRanger III helicopters. An older $3.5 million single-award Helicopter Services IDC with NIFC generated one large $1.4 million delivery order for a Eurocopter EC130 T2+ based in Payson, Arizona.

Activity has been volatile. Awards grew from 24 in 2022 to 34 in 2023, declined to 19 in 2024, recovered to 26 in 2025, and dropped to 7 in 2026 (source current through May 22, 2026). The recompete cliff shows 11 awards with ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months carrying combined potential value of $611 thousand—modest recompete exposure relative to the portfolio size, likely reflecting the maturity and renewal of the vendor's large ceiling-valued IDVs with DOI and NIFC.

North Valley Helicopters competes full-and-open on its federal prime work—no set-aside designations appear on the majority of delivery orders, though the two largest IDIQs (DOI On-Call Type III, NIFC Aviation Maintenance Services) carry total small business set-asides. The vendor's WOSB and self-certified small disadvantaged business certifications anchor pursuit of set-aside work, particularly BLM wild horse and burro census flights, which regularly carry total small business set-aside designations. Within the recent award slice, roughly 30 percent of visible awards use set-aside language (primarily BPA calls), while 70 percent reflect competitive full-and-open delivery order placements against established IDIQs.