Fleet upgrade for Phoenix Heli-Flight

Canadian-based Phoenix Heli-Flight Inc (Phoenix) has announced a fleet upgrade to the Outerlink IRIS system. Phoenix is a privately owned charter helicopter company operating from its main base and headquarters located at the Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada airport, and the Phoenix fleet consists of ten Airbus aircraft, both single and twin-turbine engine light helicopters.

IRIS is a combined voice, video and flight data monitoring system that has been fully integrated into a satellite communications platform, designed to adapt to industry changes. By upgrading to IRIS system – in addition to Outerlink’s trading software and data recorders – Phoenix will have push-to-talk radio, constant and reliable communication, live alerts and warnings, and robust tracking that is backfilled to the second, including live fuel loads.

“Choosing to upgrade our helicopters with IRIS was a complex decision, but the reasons we did are easy to define. IRIS provides multiple quality assurance technologies in a single system and Outerlink has demonstrated the ability to continuously evolve the software and hardware that is so essential to provide the data we need to keep our flight and maintenance operations safe and efficient,” said Heli-Flight President Paul Spring.  “IRIS provides instantaneous two-way satellite communication that keeps our flight operations agile, the instantaneous aircraft parameter alerts that enhance our safety, and the flight oversight data we use to save over $100,000 each year on incident investigations and insurance premiums.”