Brainerd Helicopters, Inc.

Brainerd Helicopters, Inc., doing business as Firehawk Helicopters, is a veteran-owned and woman-owned small business based in Leesburg, Florida that operates as a prime contractor providing helicopter flight operations and maintenance services to federal land management and emergency response agencies. The company operates multiple indefinite-delivery vehicles and competes under Total Small Business set-asides on a significant portion of its work, though recent awards also reflect full-and-open competition at the delivery-order level.

Firehawk Helicopters delivers specialized wildland firefighting and emergency aviation capabilities, operating a diverse rotorcraft fleet including UH-60s, S-70s, AS350, and EC145 helicopter variants. Core services encompass exclusive-use helicopter flight operations, water and retardant drops, aerial ignition support, short-haul transportation, sling-load operations, prescribed-burn support, and on-call aircraft maintenance. The company self-performs all labor with no named subcontractor engagement across its service-contract footprint. Representative work includes a $559 thousand delivery order from the National Interagency Fire Center issued September 1, 2026 for Type 1 helicopter support services under the Type 1 Helicopter Support Services 2025-2034 IDIQ; a $4.2 million delivery order from the Bureau of Land Management Idaho Region for exclusive-use Type 1 helicopter services at Boise, Idaho, awarded April 22, 2026; and a $1.007 million delivery order from the Department of the Interior Idaho Region for exclusive-use helicopter flight services in Las Vegas, Nevada, completed November 30, 2026.

Customer concentration is steep and tied to wildland fire management. The National Interagency Fire Center dominates both award count and dollar value, accounting for 125 awards and $371.2 million in combined potential value (49% of the portfolio). The Department of the Interior Office of Policy Management and Budget is the second-largest customer at 98 awards and $145.3 million, followed by the Bureau of Land Management Idaho Region at 82 awards and $102.7 million. These three entities represent 305 awards (79% of the portfolio) and $619.2 million (93% of combined potential value). The Department of the Interior Interior Business Center holds a $57.1 million share across five IDIQs. The National Park Service Intermountain Region places 35 awards valued at $26.3 million, primarily for short-haul and resource-management helicopter services at Yellowstone and Mesa Verde National Parks.

Firehawk Helicopters holds eleven parent indefinite-delivery vehicles with combined ceiling values exceeding $250 million. The Type 1 Helicopter Support Services 2025-2034 IDIQ, a $50 million multi-award vehicle with the National Interagency Fire Center, has generated 25 task orders valued at $12.6 million. The Type 3 Helicopter Support Services 2023-2032 contract, an $80 million vehicle, underwrites operations at six regional bases including Garden Valley, Idaho; Monument, Colorado; Laurel and Wiggins, Mississippi; Anniston, Alabama; and Lufkin, Texas. Firehawk holds three single-award IDIQs with the Department of the Interior for exclusive-use helicopter services: $17.9 million for Type 1 services at Boise, $4.75 million for Las Vegas operations, and $4.24 million for Tooele, Utah services. A $49.5 million Interior Business Center on-call Type III helicopter services IDIQ (2022-2027) supports nationwide fire suppression, search and rescue, and resource management. A $14.8 million single-award IDIQ with the Office of Policy Management and Budget provides H-125 on-call pilot and maintenance services for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Park Service awards include $4.5 million for Yellowstone short-haul operations and $5 million for Mesa Verde short-haul services, both total small business set-asides through February 2027 and April 2027 respectively. Firehawk holds a $30 million Department of the Interior aircraft fleet maintenance IDIQ and a $5 million single-award with DOI Fish and Wildlife Service Region 3 for Type III helicopter services at Eglin, Florida.

Activity has remained relatively flat over five years, ranging from 36 to 47 awards annually; FY2026 brought 37 awards through September. Nineteen awards with completion dates in the next twenty-four months carry combined potential value of $10.8 million, representing moderate recompete exposure. NAICS concentration is heavy in nonscheduled air transportation: 167 awards carry NAICS 481211 (Nonscheduled Chartered Passenger Air Transportation), 136 carry 481212 (Nonscheduled Chartered Freight), and 118 carry 488190 (Other Support Activities for Air Transportation). PSC codes align with aviation and fire-suppression missions: 190 awards fall under passenger air charter, 149 under forest-range fire suppression, 78 under air navigation and pilotage, and 27 under air passenger services.

Across SCI-reportable federal service contracts, Firehawk Helicopters invoiced $44.6 million from FY2022 through FY2025, with annual invoicing of $9.3 million (FY2022), $10.2 million (FY2023), $12.6 million (FY2024), and $12.4 million (FY2025). The SCI dataset shows workforce deliveries of 32.7 FTEs in FY2022, declining to 20.6 FTEs in FY2023, then stabilizing at approximately 24–25 FTEs in FY2024 and FY2025. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI-reported prime contracts ranged from a 10th percentile of $139.47/hr to a median of $194.16/hr to a 90th percentile of $475.56/hr, reflecting variation across pilot, crew, maintenance technician, and specialized aviation support roles. Firehawk self-performed 100% of reported contractor hours; no subcontractors appear in the SCI sub-engagement data. The vendor competed predominantly under Total Small Business and woman-owned set-asides across its largest IDIQs; recent task orders and delivery orders increasingly reflect full-and-open and competitive awards, particularly from the National Interagency Fire Center and Bureau of Land Management, signaling the vendor's capacity to compete at scale without set-aside protection.

Firehawk Helicopters operates the world's only commerical available Sikorsky S-70 (UH-60) Black Hawks. Our experience in multiple sectors of commerical aviation includes Fire Fighting, Aerial Crane, Construction, Flight Testing (Defense R&D), Movie and Television Production and Charter. Firehawk and Brainerd Helicopters offer over 39 years of experience in the aviation industry. Firehawk Helicopters has Sikorsky S-70 Black Hawks and Eurocopter AS-350B3 Astars available