Leading Edge Aviation, LLC

Leading Edge Aviation, LLC, a veteran-owned small business based in Clarkston, Washington, operates as a prime contractor delivering helicopter-based aerial services—including herbicide and pesticide application, wildlife capture and monitoring, aerial firefighting, and search-and-rescue operations—to federal land management and emergency response agencies across the Interior and Agriculture portfolios. The company competes predominantly under total small business set-asides on delivery orders and BPA calls, with a smaller share of full-and-open work on larger indefinite delivery vehicles.

Leading Edge Aviation's footprint spans 244 prime contract awards (100% prime posture; zero sub-awards) across 32 distinct federal agencies, driven by four large indefinite delivery vehicles anchoring the portfolio. The Department of the Interior Interior Business Center's $97.3 million on-call Type III helicopter flight services IDIQ and the National Interagency Fire Center's $50 million Helicopter Support Services - Type 2 IDIQ together account for $183.6 million (51%) of combined potential value, with the remaining portfolio split between the USDA Forest Service's $50 million Land Management Integrated Resources (LMIR) BPA and the Bureau of Land Management's $24.25 million Pacific Northwest herbicide application IDIQ (set-aside for small business through September 2028). The BLM Oregon-Washington Region dominates award count with 54 delivery orders valued at $62.6 million, reflecting Leading Edge's dominant position as a regional aerial herbicide vendor for post-fire restoration, invasive-species control, and fuel-load reduction across Vale, Burns, Lakeview, and Prineville districts in Oregon and Washington. The National Interagency Fire Center places 26 awards worth $86.5 million for wildland firefighting and aerial support; the National Park Service Intermountain Region awards 23 orders for wildlife capture and relocation; and the USDA Wildlife Services rounds out the top five with 22 awards for helicopter-based animal-control support.

Recent capability work exemplifies the portfolio's operational focus: a $1.357 million purchase order from BLM Oregon-Washington (September 2024) for emergency stabilization and restoration invasive grass and noxious weed control over 41,000 acres via aerial herbicide application; a $584.4 thousand delivery order for Vale District herbicide application (September 2026); a $345.4 thousand order for Burns District Palominio Buttes and Stinkingwater Roads herbicide treatment (September 2026); and multiple smaller orders under the BLM herbicide IDIQ and Forest Service LMIR BPA for broadcast seeding and fuel-break creation. Firefighting support draws through the NIFC Helicopter Support Services vehicle—a $336.7 thousand order (August 2026) for aerial firefighting and wildland fire suppression, and a $267.2 thousand order (July 2026) for similar operations. Wildlife capture work appears on National Park Service and Interior Department awards: a $120.8 thousand wolf eradication BPA call (July 2026, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service); a $68.2 thousand wolf and ungulate capture BPA call (December 2025, NPS Yellowstone); and a $62.4 thousand wolf and ungulate capture order (September 2024, NPS Intermountain).

Activity has been steady at 15–21 awards annually over the past five years (2022–2026), with modest growth in 2025 (21 awards). However, the recompete cliff is shallow—only 11 awards worth $1.7 million combined potential value reach ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, indicating minimal near-term exposure to competitive loss despite the vendor's reliance on IDV vehicles that will require periodic rebid cycles.

Leading Edge Aviation operates as a vertically integrated aerial services provider with no subcontractor footprint. SCI-reportable invoiced revenue from federal service contracts above the $150 thousand reporting threshold totaled $3.3 million in FY2024 and $3.1 million in FY2025, reflecting 1.8 and 1.4 FTEs respectively in those years—a narrow subset of the vendor's total federal services delivery, which is driven primarily by firm-fixed-price delivery orders and BPA calls on IDV vehicles rather than labor-hour service contracts. On SCI-reportable prime contracts, median government-paid hourly rates ran around $917/hr, with the 10th percentile at $791.77/hr and 90th percentile at $924.34/hr. The vendor places no subcontracted hours on federal work captured in SCI.

Leading Edge's market position rests on regional depth in the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies, where it has become the default aerial herbicide and wildlife-capture vendor for BLM and National Park Service operations. The company's six inactive or expired IDVs (including a legacy $5.25 million Forest Service contract through January 2024 and a closed-out $49.5 million Interior Business Center contract from May 2022) indicate sustained customer confidence in rebid cycles. With 86 awards under NAICS 481211 (Nonscheduled Chartered Passenger Air Transportation) and 65 under NAICS 115310 (Soil Preparation, Planting, and Cultivating), Leading Edge's portfolio is tightly aligned with land management mission sets and shows no diversification into other federal verticals or civilian markets.