A flight to sustainability // Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk Helicopter Loan

Withdrawn AIPs
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PROPOSAL NAME: A flight to sustainability // Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk Helicopter Loan
PROPOSAL CATEGORY: Ecosystem Fund Allocation

TEAM DESCRIPTION:

Submitted by 12GAUGE on behalf of NightHawk Holdings, Bradley Friesen & Colin Pelton.

NightHawk Holdings already owns one UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter which is currently being converted to utility/firefighting duty and will be the first Firehawk based in western Canada and the first one in Canada with night vision and night firefighting capabilities. NightHawk Holdings plans to add more units to the fleet as funding options allow and at a pace that is manageable for the operating partner.

ABSTRACT:
NightHawk Holdings, led by Bradley Friesen and Colin Pelton, are seeking a $5,700,000 USD loan for the acquisition of a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. The loan is to be repaid with interest through quarterly ApeCoin acquisitions to be distributed either to the DAO Treasury or to the community through a token-locking mechanism. This Black Hawk will be converted to a custom firefighting Firehawk machine, wrapped with ApeCoin blue and community delegate patches, and be used to fight fires across North and South America. For the first time ever, the ApeCoin DAO has the opportunity to deploy funds from the treasury in a way that helps others while also providing a return on investment. Let’s dive in.

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The global climate change trajectory of recent years has created a situation where wildfires, created by both human and natural events, are occurring at a rigorous pace. In 2023 alone, the world witnessed wildfires which destroyed many homes and devastated lives in numerous North American communities and virtually wiped out the town of Lahaina. South America has also witnessed massive wildfires in Chile and Argentina. In Canada alone, the 2023 wildfire season has seen the most area burned in Canada’s recorded history with 6551 wildfires (as of October 6, 2023) burning more than 45 million acres, evacuating 155,856 people (as of July 7, 2023). Most experts are predicting that while we may have some years with reduced wildfire activity, the general trend is towards an increase in the number and intensity of wildfires and related catastrophic loss of homes, communities and sadly human and animal life as well.

Western Canada and many other communities currently only have access to “light” category helicopters and very few medium and heavy category helicopters. These larger helicopters can typically carry 3-5x the water or fire retardant loads of light helicopters and can deploy these loads faster and more efficiently. NightHawk Holdings currently has 7 light helicopters in its operating fleet and has well-established relationships with the government forest services responsible for fighting wildfires in Western Canada and beyond.

The addition of a night vision equipped Firehawk helicopter to NightHawk Holdings fleet will dramatically increase the early response and tactical firefighting capabilities of NightHawk Holdings fleet and bring much needed larger capacity and night capabilities to communities that have historically not had these services available.

The overall project cost as outlined above is estimated at up to $5,700,000 USD and is proposed to be an interest-bearing non-compounding loan with interest calculated quarterly on the outstanding principal loan amount at the current Canadian prime interest rate at the time less 2%. The loan will be repaid out of operating revenue for the helicopter purchased at a rate of $1,500 USD per paid operating hour until the loan and interest are fully paid off.

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BENEFIT TO APECOIN ECOSYSTEM:

While the primary benefit to the ApeCoin DAO is an interest-bearing loan repayment, one of the unintended consequences of firefighting is positive publicity. The additional Firehawk helicopter added to NightHawk Holdings Helicopters’ fleet will benefit communities that come under wildfire risk and attack in the coming years. While this helicopter will be primarily based in British Columbia in Western Canada, they are very mobile and it is expected and planned that they will be deployed in other communities as required and as the fire season moves regionally throughout the year. We are already in discussion with firefighting teams in the US and Chile to provide our Firehawks to them during our local wildfire off-seasons.

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STEPS TO IMPLEMENT AND TIMELINE:

The goal will be to add a second UH-60 Firehawk to the NightHawk Holdings fleet by April 2024 which should be ahead of the anticipated wildfire season in western Canada. To achieve this we would begin with the following steps immediately after receiving funding:

  • Approval of DAO funding application
  • Receipt of ApeCoin and conversion to USD
  • NightHawk Holdings purchase of second UH-60 helicopter (estimated at ~ $2m USD)
  • Transport of UH-60 to contractor in California and conversion to civilian utility / Firehawk configuration (estimated at $1.6m USD)
  • Purchase of ancillary firefighting and ground support equipment (happens concurrent with above activities and estimated at $800,000 USD)
  • Hiring / training of additional pilots and ground support crew (happens concurrent with above activities and estimated at $500,000 USD)
  • Start-up /operating budget in case of slow start to fire season (estimated at $400,000 USD)
  • Contingency 7.5% ($400,000 USD)

OVERALL COST:
$5,700,000 USD to be repaid in full with interest.

Interest is to be calculated quarterly on the outstanding principal loan amount at the current Canadian prime interest rate at the time less 2%. The loan will be repaid out of operating revenue for the helicopter purchased at a rate of $1,500.00 USD per paid operating hour until the loan and interest are fully paid off.

REPAYMENT OPTION #1:
Funds are to be repaid to the DAO Treasury. Converted quarterly, $APE will be distributed to the DAO Treasury until fully paid off.

REPAYMENT OPTION #2:
Funds are to be repaid to the community. Using the Digital Art Movement token-locking contract (or similar), the ApeCoin community will have the opportunity to lock up $APE and receive a corresponding percentage of loan repayment based on their total tokens locked and duration. Funds will be converted quarterly to $APE and distributed until fully paid off.

  • Repayment Option #1 - DAO Treasury
  • Repayment Option #2 - Community
0 voters

Once the above model is proven successful there may be opportunities to repeat or expand the relationship with further UH-60 purchases and Firehawk conversions & deployment.

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Reserved for changelog.

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Exciting and unique AIP 12G!
Personally voted for Option #2 coz staking is always good, just one question tho;
How does this AIP plan to generate revenue in order to pay back the loan? Maybe I miss something or wasnt able to understand the point in this field.

Thank you

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It’s to be rented out.

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Ah ok so Contour Helicopter buy a heli, then rent it out to authorities? Like officially to Govt entities? Nice makes sense now.
Thanks

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I Love being sustainable, but why not start with a Tesla

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A fire-fighting Tesla?

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Yes you can put a wrap on it that says something like " only you can prevent forest fires" :joy:

Cmon guys lets stop bleeding this DAO with foolishness

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Tesla would be a great start, don’t you think?

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I respectfully disagree that a proposal (a loan, no less) that would provide an essential, potentially life-saving service, which would also return interest revenue to the DAO (or to the Community) is either “foolishness” or “bleeding” the DAO.

We’ve seen a number of proposals lately that would return some form of revenue back to the DAO, and I for one encourage any and all Ideas (even if they don’t offer a return) to be put on the table.

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what if the tesla was used by a fire police chief instead of using a 1995 crown Victoria. that seems sustainable. im from CA i know about wild fires and when they are uncontrollable there is nothing you can do. if the fire can be knocked out then it is. funds would be better spent on protecting people where they are at, such as fireprooffing there properties or cutting back overgrown veg. instead of throwing a cup of water on a lake of fire for 5.7 million. just my opinion. im not trying to be combative just discussion. appreciate all proposals .

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Police departments purchase their own vehicles in bulk, as assets, and wouldn’t support branding in most jurisdictions, I’m sure.

Fire-fighting equipment, to the effect of this helicopter, are contracted ad hoc as the expense to purchase, store and maintain would be untenable for a local fire department on an annual basis. Thus, the income generated from these charters provides the revenue (to the tune of interest on $1,500 per hour), as well as enables ApeCoin branding possibilities.

How do you propose a Tesla generate revenue? Or provide brand exposure for ApeCoin?

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Why a loan with interest and not partial ownership with a share of revenue perpetually? Although there would then be maintenance and operational costs involved.

I know nothing about this industry but I think $5.7m is a pretty big number and most would like to see what the profitability is on something like this.

A firefighting helicopter sounds a bit radical idea vs something like a commercial building.

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Given your name I believe that there may be a conflict of interest.

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Thanks for the interest and questions here. Working on getting this team of boomers set up on Discourse to answer these questions.

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very interesting, gives time to think :thinking:

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Hey Fuego. I’m one of the owner of the company that has been talking with 12Guage about this proposal.

When the proposal was first written, it was kind of misstated as a deal with Contour, the operating company. We are actually a partnership called Nighthawk Aviation that is a lessor of helicopters to operators. In this case, Contour.

The proposal is written as a loan because we really don’t want additional partners from the ownership side. Figuring how to include a DAO into the ownership structure would be very difficult. Especially since we already own a Blackhawk helicopter that we are leasing. Making a partial ownership of one of the company assets gets convoluted.

The cleanest structure is a loan. We are planning additional helicopters and would give the first right of financing for all additional machines to ApeCoin.

As for risk, the goal of the machine is mainly Government contracts. The trend in fires has been exponential unfortunately. This winter in British Columbia is forecast to be very light on snowfall and so far, average precipitation is way below normals for the period. That means next summer could be another bad one. Our hope isn’t for additional fires, it’s to provide 24hr standby coverage for the communities of British Columbia as a precaution with an extremely capable platform with the latest technologies. The best case scenario is we don’t need to fly, but if required we can stomp on a fire hard and quick.

Hope this answers your questions.

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Hey Raymond, I’m one of the owners of the company that has been talking with 12Guage about this proposal.

Aerial fire fighting is not intended to put out a fire. Almost no amount of water from aircraft can put out a fire. That is the job of ground crews that manually turn logs, and dig the earth. What aerial equipment does is slow or deflect the fire in certain areas to allow structures and communities to be protected by ground equipment. Mineralized earth does not burn, almost everything else in a forest does. But water will knock down a fire and give people on the ground a better chance to deal with it.

Wildland fire is a coordinated attack and not “throwing a cup of water on a lake for 5.7 million”

Some places in the world, government agencies own their own aerial fire fighting equipment, like “Cal-Fire” in California, but most places rely on private the sector and rent their helicopters for fire fighting.

That is what we are proposing. We already own 1 Blackhawk helicopter that will begin fighting in Canada in the 2024 fire season. When it isn’t fighting fires, it will be doing heavy lift operations like building hydro distribution lines.

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Hey CryptoLogically, thanks for your support in hearing out our proposal.

Just to give you some further background on who we are, and where we see benefits to the DAO from our proposal…

We currently own 1 Blackhawk which is being converted into a full NVG (Night Vision) Firehawk. We anticipate it being in Canada in Feb 2024 to begin training with crews. It will be the second Blackhawk helicopter in Canada.

Even before speaking with 12Guage, we have planned additional Blackhawk purchases and converstions into Firehawks. Our first machine was completely self funded by the partnership and is owned free and clear. We don’t have company debt. The revenue projections are healthy with Fire, aerial construction, logging and film projects only available to the very unique class of “heavy” helicopters. This machine has the ability to work all over the world on contracts with governments and industry. Even before receiving the machine, we are booked on film and TV shows and are meeting with major power companies about projects.

That’s why we proposed an interest rate of prime less 2% as a loan structure. We would repay that out of operating income at $1500 per flight hour until the loan and interest are repaid.

The advantage we see to the DAO is the promotional opportunities by being able to tell not only the crypto world, but the main stream media (as well as non traditional media) about the ApeCoin funding a major piece of life saving equipment. It is a story that will gain traction around the world. It is a very unique machine with a very unique financing structure. It will give credibility to the DAO as the virtual world funds a real world solution to a grown international problem.

There is also the opportunity to do a custom wrap job on the machine for Apecoin events or specific promotional opportunities and photo/video.

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What happens if there’s a default on the loan? Will we have authority to recover the asset in that country? And even if we do, how would this work and who will be doing this part if the worse happens?

Feel this is lacking assurity and/or security.

I just don’t wanna see almost six million ‘fly’ away.

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