Tonight a search and rescue outfit from Kalispell, Two Bear Air, showed up to do some training with the local search and rescue folks. According to the SAR pilots this is a unique service in that the interior of the US does not have assets like this. Affiliated with the Flathead County(Kalispell area) Sheriffs office but privately funded. The service costs the taxpayers nothing. A wealthy individual paid $10 million for a couple helicopters and then pays approx $1 million a year to operate the service. Primary mission is SAR but they work with law enforcement when asked.
They have all the goodies on the copters. FLIR, IR and regular cameras, etc. They can put the pipper of the FLIR on a target from miles away and the system will record the lat/lon and elevation of that target. They prefer to do SAR at night as the FLIR makes it easier to locate targets. Cool stuff.

A big hitter VC guy here in the Valley donated them, Mike Gougan. They sure are nice and that was quite a nice gesture.

I'm of the age when VC means Viet-Cong. Please educate me as to what VC means today.

VC = very cool

In the context of money, VC = Venture Capital

Or as a tech guy who's been screwed by the money people...twice...Vulture Capitalists.

A pleasant surprise to see one of those guys doing the right thing for a change.

Nice chopper, nice gesture by whoever the guy was or however he made his money!

Bell 429, very nice helicopter. Probably one of the nicest small helicopters out there.