Specifications include, but are not limited to: 1. Equipment and Employee Minimums: a. Contractor to provide a minimum of two (2) helicopters, pilots and service trucks; Contractor must have the ability to move in a substitute helicopter, should one of the initial two be unable to continue on the project. b. The Contractor must be the actual owner of the aircraft and service trucks with aircraft N-Numbers registered in the company name. c. The pilots shall be employees of the successful Contractor. 2. Anticipated Total Project Flight Hours Per Area: a. Total annual project flight hours are anticipated to be about 65-130 hours and geographically distributed approximately as follows: i. Clackamas County and the northern half of Marion County: 10-20 hours ii. Southern half of Marion County and the northern part of Linn County: 10-20 hours iii. Southern Polk County and Benton, Lane and Linn Counties: 20-40 hrs. iv. Western Multnomah, Washington, Yamhill, and northern Polk Counties: 20-40 hours v. Umatilla and Union Counties: 5-10 hours 3. Project Dates and Description of Procedures: a. Within the Willamette Valley, the project period can begin on or about mid-May and may continue through mid-June. Weather conditions may require extension of these dates, and flying on weekends may be necessary. Due to weather uncertainty, minimum daily flight hours cannot be guaranteed. b. A normal day’s service by one helicopter under this Contract is estimated at approximately three to six, 1 to 2 hour flights. Each flight may have up to two OSCS personnel, one serving as navigator and the other as the observer/recorder. In some instances, one OSCS personnel will serve as both navigator and recorder. c. An initial point of departure within each of the geographical areas will be specified by OSCS; usually the initial point will be a public or private airport or the contractor’s home base. Locations for refueling and for leaving the craft overnight will generally be local public or private airports or locations on farms as arranged by the Seed Certification personnel. Refueling must be available as required during the day at remote locations without having to return to the pilot’s and/or helicopter’s home base or other airports. Refueling locations are various surfaces, usually level or very slightly sloping, and variously bare ground, gravel, rock pad, cement, gravel and grass, cut grass. d. Flying in support of seed crop inspections requires slow maneuvering in all directions within the borders of each field (some fields are on hilly terrain) at approximately 10 – 20 feet above the crop (below the level of local electric power lines, telephone lines, transmission lines, tree tops and rooftops), then lifting out of the field in the direction of the next field to be inspected. Many fields have wires within and crossing them. The types of wires range from single lines looping out to a pump or crossing a field (sometimes with poles hidden in trees or behind buildings, to multiple local electric and phone lines, to massive cross country transmission lines).
