Articles for category Company Profiles
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Aug
27
2018
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Posted by Admin
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Helicopter communications and flight tracking are becoming more reliable, consistent, and affordable; thanks to a multi-platform (cellular/radio/satellite) approach being taken by manufacturers and service providers alike. Here’s a sampling of what’s available today to keep helicopter pilots and their ground stations connected and constantly informed.
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Categories:
Company Profiles
Helicopter Sectors
Training
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Aug
20
2018
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Posted by Admin
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If the key to Success City is preparing oneself to take advantage of opportunities, then Kaman’s Senior Director of Business Development Roger Wassmuth has worn that master key to a nub. “Taking advantage of opportunities that presented themselves on my path pretty much got me to where I am today. I enjoyed most of the path that I took,” he circumspectly says.
The path has been no leisurely stroll down a meandering way, rather Wassmuth’s career path ascended to his senior position beginning at a fast and purposeful pace. The Columbus, Ohio, native—and proud Ohio State University Buckeyes fan—entered the military in 1978 directly out of high school, where he served as a Navy maintenance technician. He even honed his maintenance skills earlier as a boy in his father’s full-service gas station. (You may remember those now extinct establishments: service attendants wore ties, and usually a smile, as they checked your oil, belts, battery, and tires while topping off your tank.) The boy started out pulling weeds on the station’s lot and eventually worked his way up to performing repairs, tune-ups, and oil changes.
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Categories:
Company Profiles
Human Interest
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May
14
2018
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Posted by Admin
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There are times when helicopters can’t just fly from one place to another, and during those times, Farren International comes to the rescue.
Sometimes it’s because the rotorcraft is in pieces, either because it’s not yet assembled or tragically because it crashed. Other times it’s operable, but it’s a prototype not yet authorized to fly anywhere outside of specified testing zones. It might be that a new owner doesn’t want to add flight time to the precious cargo until it’s in his hands. Or they’re military secrets that the public can’t see flying overhead. In the case of aerospace projects, such as rockets, they aren’t designed to fly to their launch points. “We’re probably the premier aircraft ground transportation company,” said Glenn Wargo, Farren’s director of aircraft transportation who helped start up that portion of Farren’s business back in 1989.
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Categories:
Company Profiles
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Jan
22
2018
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Posted by Admin
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At the tender age of five Patric Wells was moving milk and pop bottles from his father’s Stratford, Ontario retail food store to a nearby storage building for 5 cents an hour. That’s quite a young age to join the business world, but it provided the foundation for his success today. “I guess it gives a kid a good work ethic, because I still work hard every day,” Wells relates.
Wells doesn’t have to prove his continuing work ethic; knowing that he operates four businesses simultaneously is enough. Combined, they offer a full range of services to customers seeking to buy or lease a helicopter and mold it to fit their precise needs.
East West Helicopter Inc. (EWH) based in Harrison, Ohio has supported the helicopter industry for more than four decades, providing maintenance, parts sales, helicopter sales and leasing. Panterra Heli Support Ltd (PHSL) based in Beamsville, Ontario, provides MRO, heavy maintenance, avionics integration, engineering, custom paint and other customizations, completions, one-off configurations, and field support for existing leases. NS Air Leasing and Borderline Air expand upon the sales and leasing aspect of the group, especially the Airbus product line.
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Categories:
Company Profiles
Helicopter Sectors
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Jan
15
2018
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Posted by Admin
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Airbus Helicopters Inc. based in Grand Prairie, Texas, is the U.S. division of a global company that has adopted an effective way to ride out the current downturn in helicopter sales: Revamp everything to put customers first.
In doing so, Airbus Helicopters Inc. is aiming to be the rotorcraft company that customers think of first, because they like the way their needs are courteously and quickly addressed by Airbus Helicopters Inc.: Every. Single.Time.
Putting Airbus Helicopters Inc. first in customers’ minds is a smart strategy, given how competitive the last few years have been for new helicopter sales. Slumping oil prices and other economic factors have substantially reduced the demand for new helicopter purchases. Meanwhile, the contraction of the oil & gas sector has resulted in affordable used helicopters flooding the market.
Future prospects for new helicopter sales are not encouraging, according to Honeywell. In its 19th annual "Turbine-Powered Civil Helicopter Purchase Outlook" that was released in March 2017, Honeywell predicted that 3,900 to 4,400 civilian-use helicopters will be delivered from 2017 to 2021—roughly 400 helicopters lower than in its 2016 5-year forecast.
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Categories:
Company Profiles
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Jan
02
2018
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Posted by Admin
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“Pilots concern me that are continuously bragging of all they have done, how well they can fly, and how great of a pilot they are. Actions speak louder than words, and I want to see professionalism and safety in the way they fly, as opposed to the words they speak.” says Tony Bonham.
Bonham’s aviation career began while he was still in high school, and upon graduating he joined the Army to attend flight school. Due to a recruiter’s ignorance, Bonham didn’t fly through his service; instead he stayed on the ground as an air traffic controller in Savannah, Georgia. “I actually went into the Army to fly helicopters but once I got in I found out that my eyes were far too bad to pass the physical for flight school. My recruiter had a field artillery background and was not familiar with aviation requirements and apparently didn’t care enough to learn,” he remembers without bitterness.
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Categories:
Company Profiles
Human Interest
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Nov
07
2017
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Posted by Admin
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As with everything else in the Sunshine State, Hurricane Irma temporarily benched west-central Florida’s Bayflite air ambulance service. It wasn’t just the unflyable hurricane-force winds that grounded Bayflite’s three H135s. Irma’s unpredictable storm path also kept this air medical service (AMS) and its parent company Air Methods guessing as they tried to prepare for the storm.
“Well in advance of Irma’s landfall, Air Methods set up an emergency operations/control flight center in Fort Myers (also in west-central Florida) at its LeeFlight base,” said Matt Turner, Air Methods’ area manager for Central Florida. Air Methods used the LeeFlight AMS base to stage resources brought in from outside of Florida, for deployment in the state pre-storm and post-storm. A fixed-wing Pilatus aircraft was also brought in to help transport patients before Irma hit.
“Irma then turned west and was headed directly at us, so our regional leadership quickly decided to change direction even as we were in the middle of implementing our plan,” said Turner. “So we evacuated all our local assets, because no-one knew whether Irma was going to go up the east coast, west coast, or right up the middle of the state.”
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Categories:
Company Profiles
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Oct
30
2017
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Posted by Admin
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Upon graduation, the young man came very close to working in banking and finance. “The guy that ran NationsBank in Dallas said something to me that really changed my career path. I was very outspoken back then, and he told me that in the corporate world, 50 percent of the job is political. He told me that if I wasn’t prepared to play that game, then banking and finance wasn’t the place for me. That struck me and I realized my heart was in aviation.” After Mast realized his plainspoken, direct nature wasn’t tailored for bankers in Brooks Brothers suits uttering politically correct bromides, he returned to his first love and to the company that had helped him pay his college bills. AvGroup’s Ed Tomberlin had a job for the returning graduate that required neither political maneuvering nor silk over-the-calf banking hosiery. Nevertheless, Mast was expected to wear clothes. “He offered me $2,000 a year more than my banking job and $500 so I could buy some clothes,” Mast chuckles. “Ed was truly a brilliant man and entrepreneur. I was fortunate to learn the ins and outs of the industry under his tutelage.” Yes, Mast found employment in an industry that he loved and that fit him better than banking. Parts and components don’t care what you say or wear. Aviation is all about “mission accomplished.”
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Categories:
Career Development
Helicopter Sectors
Company Profiles
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Oct
23
2017
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Posted by Admin
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Colombia historically has been a country full of security challenges. For more than five decades, its military and police forces were engaged in a bloody fight against armed terrorist groups and drug trafficking organizations that claimed more than 220,000 lives. These armed organizations such as FARC (in English, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia) unfortunately brought Colombia an international reputation for high levels of violence and cocaine production.
The extended internal conflict in this South American country has led to improvements in military and police capacity and equipment. Colombian armed forces once lagging behind in technology and operational readiness are now strong, trained, and global benchmark institutions in the fight against terrorist organizations and illegal drug trafficking.
The National Police of Colombia’s Police Air Service is an integral part of this transformation. Since its founding in 1958 with a few Cessna 206 aircraft to control crime, this unit attached to the Anti-Narcotics Directorate has boosted its capabilities and exponentially increased its aircraft fleet. Thanks to the help of the United States, the Police Air Service currently has in its inventory 80 helicopters and 60 airplanes that record a total of about 42,000 flight hours annually to support police operations in both rural and urban missions.
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Categories:
Helicopter Sectors
Company Profiles
Training
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Oct
16
2017
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Posted by Admin
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Facing a mind-boggling 122,000 victims who needed to be rescued across 182,000 acres of flooded neighborhoods, air rescues were especially critical to the massive effort to save lives when Hurricane Harvey struck the Gulf Coast Aug. 25 then stalled and dumped a record 51 inches of torrential rain in three days.
The federal government deployed more than 21,000 staff to the hurricane area in late August, but that wasn’t enough. Alongside volunteers, private industry was essential to search & rescue as well as recovery efforts – especially air operations that could spot and rescue people in areas that were inaccessible from the ground. Everyone worked together under the same incident command system.
Hundreds of helicopters performed a variety of simultaneous missions in the worst of conditions and somehow avoided accidents. Crews cut through roofs to hoist people stranded in attics, flew patients in critical condition out of flooded hospitals, and repaired major transmission lines.
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Categories:
Human Interest
Helicopter Sectors
Company Profiles