Built by Heli-Dunn
Heli-Feller
Grapples and cuts a tree from the top down under positive control of the pilot. Each section is walked away from the conductor and set where it belongs — no climber, no bucket, no ground disturbance.
Medford OR · Lumberton NC · Fairbanks AK · Coldfoot AK
Precision work
where there is
no road in.
Heli-Dunn is a family-owned helicopter operator flying vegetation management, utility construction, remote-site construction and fire support — in country where no truck, no crane and no ground crew can reach. Twenty-plus years, zero accidents.
ZeroAccidents since 2004
2004Founded — Medford, Oregon
4 BasesOregon · N. Carolina · Alaska ×2
AS350Fleet standard — Airbus Astar
What we fly
Six ways we
solve a job site
Two of these tools were built in our own hangar and are flown nowhere else.
Built by Heli-Dunn
Heli-Saw
An aerially applied saw for side trimming right-of-ways and travel corridors. Several miles a day, in terrain a ground crew would need a season to walk. Built for large-diameter western timber and steep ground.
Hazard & salvage
Vertical Grapple
Hazard tree removal and post-fire salvage, logging, storm response and right-of-way cleanup where vehicle travel isn’t permitted or possible. We work with the prime on bucking and weights so every turn uses the aircraft’s full capacity.
Utility & construction
Utility Construction
Line construction and maintenance across the full scope of work:
- Patrol
- HEC
- Pole sets
- Wire pull
- HVAC lifts
- Cell tower lifts
Agency contracts
Fire & Land Management
Contracted by federal and state agencies for fire suppression support, aerial ignition, and the management and conservation of public land and natural resources.
Before you bid
Consulting
Most people call us after they’ve ruled a helicopter out. We build the operational plan — technical constraints, safety, logistics, budget — and more than once it has come back cheaper and faster than the ground option.
See it work
A right-of-way,
start to finish
Heli-Saw vegetation management on a NorthWestern Energy transmission corridor.
Staging and fueling with the saw rigged, the corridor from the air, loads on the long line, and crews working the line below. This is what a side-trimming operation looks like on the ground — miles a day through country a bucket truck will never reach.
Arctic operations
Alaska
construction
Fairbanks base · Coldfoot staging on the Dalton Highway, above the Arctic Circle.
When the nearest road is eighty miles behind you, the helicopter is the road. Heli-Dunn supports remote construction across the Brooks Range and the Northwest Arctic — moving crews, steel, concrete, fuel and drill equipment onto mountaintops that have no other way in.
We run Alaska out of Fairbanks, with forward staging at Coldfoot on the Dalton Highway. Aircraft, fuel, parts and people stage north from there to whatever the project needs.
01Site prep & drill supportRotary and core drill moves, anchor installation, rock work at elevation.02Tower & foundation constructionBase builds and steel setting for communications and microwave infrastructure.03External load deliverySteel, concrete, generators, fuel, tooling — sequenced to the build, not to the truck.04Crew shuttle & camp logisticsDaily rotations between staging camp and multiple active summit sites.05Fuel stagingFly-tank staging that extends the working radius to the farthest sites.06Survey, recon & LZ assessmentLanding zone surveys and access planning before the first crew lands.
Interior & Northwest Arctic — Site NetworkIllustrative
Base / staging
Summit site
Fuel staging
Sortie routing
FairbanksAlaska operations base
ColdfootForward staging, Dalton Highway
Self-stagedOwn fuel, logistics and camp support
Multi-crewSimultaneous crews on separate summits
Site intelligence
We put eyes on
the site before
we ever launch
A forecast from eighty miles away tells you nothing about whether your ridge is in cloud.
Weather in this country is local and it turns over by the hour. The nearest reporting station is often a long way from the site, and the difference between a productive day and a wasted one is knowing — not guessing — what the ceiling is doing on that particular mountain.
So we install our own. Heli-Dunn deploys self-powered camera and weather stations at the sites we serve. Solar array, self-heating lithium battery, satellite uplink. They send live site imagery and conditions back to dispatch, to the customer, and to the pilot’s phone — with no grid power and no cell service anywhere near.
- Launch decisions made on what the site actually looks like, not on a regional forecast
- Fewer aborted sorties, fewer dry runs, less hour-meter spent finding out the hard way
- Crews get on site earlier in the weather window and stay in it longer
- Customers watch their own site conditions in real time from anywhere
- Timestamped record of conditions for daily reporting and weather-delay documentation
- Runs through the winter — heated battery packs and solar sized for low sun angles
Site Camera Network — Pilot View
Illustrative
SITE 0407:12 AKDT
CIG UNLVIS 20+WND 08 KTTMP 41°F
SITE 0707:12 AKDT
CIG 300 OVCVIS 1½WND 22 KTTMP 36°F
2 of 9 sites shown
Solar · Satellite uplink · No grid required
PowerSolar with self-heating lithium battery, wind generation where the site earns it — sized to run through Arctic winter.
UplinkSatellite internet. No cell coverage or grid power required at the site.
ImageryWeatherproof camera on a scheduled interval, pushed to a hosted feed.
InstallSkid-mounted and flown in as one load. We place it, we service it, we fly past it.
The aircraft
Astar for precision.
Huey for the bigger loads.
AS350 Astars are the working fleet. A medium-lift UH-1 Huey comes on when the load outgrows them.
Heli-Dunn’s working fleet is the Airbus AS350 “Astar.” For utility and external-load work it outclasses every other single-engine machine on performance, versatility and safety, and because the fleet is built around one type, procedures, parts and training all line up.
When a job calls for more than an Astar can carry — drill rigs, tower steel, fuel in volume — we bring a medium-lift UH-1 Huey to it.
- Maintained to manufacturer and FAA Part 135 requirements
- Modified to left-hand-drive pilot position for superior external load visibility
- Crash-worthy seats and fuel tanks
- Satellite flight tracking on every mission
| Type | Base | Primary mission |
|---|---|---|
| AS350 | Medford, Oregon | Vegetation management & utility |
| AS350 | Lumberton, N. Carolina | Utility line construction |
| AS350 | Fairbanks, Alaska | Remote construction support |
| AS350 | Coldfoot, Alaska | Forward staging & site logistics |
| UH-1 Huey | Mobilized to the project | Medium-lift external loads — drill rigs, steel, bulk fuel |
The Huey is brought to a project rather than based at a field. Other types are added under contract as scope requires.
From the field
Somebody had
to go look
Brooks Range, Alaska · June 22, 2026
There is no helicopter waiting nearby out here. Finding someone takes a pilot who decides to go, and knows how to look.
On the morning of June 22, 2026, a Cessna Caravan commuter flight left Coldfoot for Anaktuvuk Pass with a pilot and nine passengers aboard. Minutes after takeoff the engine began to surge. The airplane could not hold altitude, and the pilot put it down off-airport on open tundra, dozens of miles from the nearest road or settlement. He flew it onto survivable ground and everyone walked away — a split lip for him, no injuries among the passengers.
Heli-Dunn pilot Thomas Goss was flying out of Coldfoot that morning and heard the call go out over VHF. He went looking.
Working off the ELT frequency and the position estimates other pilots were passing back and forth on the radio, he searched until he found the airplane, and ten people standing beside it. He landed and flew the first group out, then called in a second helicopter to help move the rest.
Then he went back for their belongings — luggage, cargo, everything they had been carrying — and slung it into Coldfoot camp behind them.
We put this on the site for one reason. Out there, nothing is passing by. What made the difference that morning was a pilot who decided to go, and who knew how to run a search off a beacon and a radio — and that is the part of this work that never shows up on a rate sheet.
Thomas Goss
Pilot · Heli-Dunn · Coldfoot, Alaska
Featured on
CBS Evening News
Safety culture
The record
speaks first
Audited several times a year — by our customers and by the government.
ZeroACCIDENTS SINCE 2004
Twenty-plus years of long-line, low-level and external-load flying in mountainous terrain, and not one accident. That record isn’t luck — it’s the product of a culture where any crew member can stop the job, and a weather call is never second-guessed.
Heli-Dunn prides itself on its operational culture and safety record. Our aircraft and personnel are audited several times per year by government and third-party auditors. That sets a high level of assurance before we ever go to work for some of the largest utilities in the nation.
RecordZero accidents since the company was founded in 2004RatingGrade “A” rated contractorRegistryISNetworld member in good standingRegulatoryFAA Part 135 certificate holderTrackingSatellite flight following on every missionAuthorityStop-work authority held by every crew memberReviewAnnual third-party and customer audits
Grade “A”
ISNetworld
FAA Part 135
Who we are
A family company
with forty years
on the controls
Founded 2004 · Rogue Valley International Airport, Medford, Oregon
Scott Dunn
Founder & President
With over 40 years as a commercial helicopter pilot, Scott Dunn has flown nearly every mission a helicopter can be asked to do. He spent most of his career across the west in the logging industry, where he developed as a precision long-line pilot working extreme mountainous terrain. Fire suppression, aerial ignition, heavy lift, search and rescue, logistical support, geospatial, oil exploration, mining and gas work all built the experience base he carried forward.
In 2004 he formed Heli-Dunn out of Rogue Valley International Airport in Medford, Oregon. Over the following years, Scott and the team developed two industry-changing machines for vegetation management — the Heli-Saw and the Heli-Feller — technology that took tree climbers out of some of the most dangerous positions in the trade. Both are now offered to customers internationally.
Our people came up in high-risk organizations, on many different aircraft, with the mission changing under them. They perform, they adapt, and they deliver.
Heli-Dunn is a full-service helicopter provider serving industries and agencies worldwide: vegetation and fire management, utility infrastructure reliability, construction, back-country logistics and precision long-line services. Our crews are pre-loaded with the best training these industries offer — the field experience is what makes them part of your implementation plan rather than just a vendor on it.
Coverage
Where the work
has shown up
Reported by others, not written by us.
CBS Evening News
National coverage of the Brooks Range emergency landing, and the helicopter crews who brought everyone out.
2026 · National
Yellowstone Public Radio
Beetle-killed timber near power lines and the wildfire risk it carries — hazard tree removal in Montana’s Gallatin River Canyon.
2021 · Montana
KVAL — Eugene
Aerial trimming on the EWEB right-of-way along Oregon’s McKenzie River.
2021 · Oregon
Get in touch
Tell us what
you need moved
Bring us the constraint, not the solution. We’ll tell you if a helicopter is the wrong answer.
Business office & Medford hangar
3727 International Way
Medford, Oregon 97504
Monday–Friday, 8:00am – 5:00pm · Weekends by appointment
Mailing
P.O. Box 276
Phoenix, Oregon 97535
Operating bases
OregonMedford — headquarters & hangar
North CarolinaLumberton — southeast utility work
AlaskaFairbanks — Alaska operations base
AlaskaColdfoot — forward staging, Dalton Hwy