Leading Edge Aviation, LLC

Leading Edge Aviation, LLC, a veteran-owned small business based in Clarkston, Washington, provides helicopter-based aerial services to federal land management and wildlife agencies as a prime contractor across interior and agriculture portfolios, specializing in aerial herbicide and pesticide application, wildlife capture and monitoring, aerial firefighting, and search-and-rescue operations. The company operates predominantly under full-and-open competition with occasional total-small-business set-asides; recent awards across 231 federal contract transactions show 100% prime positioning with no subcontractor footprint.

Leading Edge's customer concentration reflects deep penetration of Interior Department land management bureaus. The top five funding agencies account for 56% of awards by count but 85% of combined potential value, led by the Department of the Interior Interior Business Center (15 awards, $97.3 million), the National Interagency Fire Center under Forest Service (21 awards, $85.3 million), and the Bureau of Land Management Oregon-Washington Region (49 awards, $61.3 million). The three rankings diverge markedly: BLM Oregon-Washington drives award volume through numerous smaller delivery orders under an ongoing IDIQ, while Interior Business Center anchors dollars through two large helicopter-support vehicles ($11 million and $49.5 million ceilings). Additional customers include the National Park Service Intermountain Region (23 awards), Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Wildlife Services (22 awards), and BLM Idaho Region (11 awards).

Leading Edge holds position on five named parent vehicles totaling roughly $347 million in aggregate ceiling: a $49.5 million Department of Interior multiple-award indefinite delivery contract for on-call Type III helicopter services through April 2027 (set-aside for small businesses), a $50 million USDA Forest Service Land Management Integrated Resources BPA through March 2033 (no set-aside), a $24.25 million BLM Pacific Northwest herbicide application IDIQ through September 2028 (small-business set-aside), an $11 million Interior Business Center BPA for animal capture and tagging through April 2030 (100% small-business set-aside), and a $5.25 million Forest Service single-award helicopter contract through January 2024. Task-order activity under the primary vehicles tracks year-over-year volume: the BLM herbicide IDIQ (INL16PC00162) has issued 36 task orders totaling $10.7 million; the legacy blanket-purchase agreement 140D8020A0012 carries 24 task orders at $1.6 million; the National Interagency Fire Center Helicopter Support Services - Type 2 shows 8 task orders at $1.5 million. Delivery orders under the BLM vehicle span the Vale, Burns, and Lakeview districts in Oregon and Washington, with individual ceiling values from roughly $10,000 to over $1.05 million on firm fixed-price terms.

Capability portfolio is explicitly grounded in delivered work: Leading Edge bills itself as providing aerial herbicide and pesticide application for invasive-species control and fuel-load reduction, helicopter transportation for personnel and cargo, wildlife capture and relocation support (elk, bison, wolves, ungulates), aerial firefighting and wildland fire suppression, and search-and-rescue operations. Representative contract work includes a $1.36 million total-small-business purchase order from BLM Oregon-Washington for emergency-stabilization-and-rehabilitation invasive-grass and noxious-weed control across 41,000 acres in Vale, Oregon (awarded September 2024); a $911,112 delivery order from BLM Idaho Region for 2021 Burns aerial weed treatments (August 2021); a $833,900 delivery order for ESR FY21 imazapic aerial herbicide treatments in Vale (August 2021); a $74,530 BPA call from National Park Service Intermountain Region for on-call helicopter services supporting Yellowstone wolf and ungulate capture (November 2023); and numerous smaller orders under the LMIR and BLM herbicide vehicles ranging from $45,000 to $400,000 for broadcast seeding, herbicide application, and wildfire-response operations across the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies.

Activity has remained steady in recent years — 15 awards in 2022, 17 in 2023, 15 in 2024, and 21 in 2025 — with only two awards recorded in 2026 to date. Three awards reach ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months, representing $162,000 in combined potential value, translating to modest near-term recompete exposure. The vendor's Service Contract Inventory footprint shows $3.3 million in invoiced revenue on federal service contracts in FY2024 across 1.8 FTEs, with government-paid hourly rates clustering at a median of $917 per hour and ranging from roughly $792 to $924 per hour; SCI is a partial view covering contracts above the $150,000 threshold and excludes goods procurement and much of Leading Edge's federal portfolio. The company operates with zero named subcontractors across its visible federal award base and reports zero sub-hours share on prime contracts, indicating a vertically integrated service-delivery model.