"The team have worked tirelessly to get these helicopters ready to fly and they've done a brilliant job of ensuring the life-saving service Northland Rescue Helicopter provides is future proofed."
Since January, the service's rescue choppers had an average flight time of 75 minutes, meaning NRH pilots have flown about 67,578 minutes – or the same time it would take to fly to Japan and back 47 times.
The year started by airlifting a teenage girl from Bay of Islands to Whangārei Hospital after she was injured by a boat propeller.
Another of the many notable rescues was a man in his 50s who was flown to Whangārei Hospital from Mangawhai after the tractor he was driving rolled on him.
Pilot Rhys McLachlan, who came on board this year, moved his family to Whangārei for what he described as a "dream role for a helicopter pilot".
"You work with great machines, a really good team, and make a difference to people's lives. When you help another human, you are achieving in life, and we get to do that every day."
All Northland Rescue Helicopter pilots are undertaking extensive training in the two new Sikorsky choppers and McLachlan is enjoying testing the machines' capabilities.
"Helicopters are amazing machines. You can land anywhere in them. You can land in the weirdest of places and go anywhere in them – you can do it all in a helicopter."
In the past 30 years the Northland Rescue choppers have carried more than 20,000 lives to safety.
