Articles for category Company Profiles
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Dec
17
2018
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Posted by Admin
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Anyone who’s ever traveled in the western United States, has come face to face with the great Rocky Mountains. They’re formidable. They’re hard. They’re rugged. Such are the characteristics of the people it takes to run a helicopter business in and around those beautiful, yet unforgiving rocks.
Mark Taylor is chief pilot and co-owner of Rocky Mountain Rotors (RMR). After hearing his journey, I view him as a living testimony to what happens when the school of hard knocks crosses paths with perseverance and a little bit of luck.
Taylor began at Silver State Helicopters as a Robinson R22 pilot. He now owns and operates a full-service helicopter operation utilizing the R22, R44, Bell 206, 407, and 429. The gregarious and charismatic aviator is a horseman and a hunter. At the end of my first day with him, he asked, “Do you like beer?” I knew we were going to get along just fine. We enjoyed an amazing Salmon Fly ale from Madison River Brewery that concluded Day One on a high note.
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Categories:
Company Profiles
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Nov
11
2018
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Posted by Admin
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Probably the first thing noticed in this article’s photos are the paint jobs on Ecocopter’s H125 helicopters, Much of their artwork is admired on social media for its intriguing and avant-garde style, but the fact is that operator Ecocopter, is intriguing and avant-garde itself.
Ecocopter is a Chilean company born 15 years ago with the vision of providing a different type of service in their region of the world. Born with a single helicopter, they were pioneers, providing the first EC130B4 in Chile for private use. As changes occurred, especially in the mining sector, they began to provide air services to industry. Then, after having success, an AS350B3 was purchased. After the aerial sector for industry continued to grow, the next logical step was to buy four helicopters to start Ecocopter’s fleet.
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Categories:
Company Profiles
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Oct
15
2018
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Posted by Admin
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Just as a LifeFlight of Maine helicopter crew was conducting a safety course for EMS responders in a small rural community, a call came in to help a hemorrhaging pregnant woman. Fortunately, the training and emergency were both occurring on Vinalhaven Island.
LifeFlight landed nearby and found Megan Day, 38 weeks pregnant, on the floor in her home. She needed to get to a hospital on the mainland as quickly as possible, but she was an hour’s boat ride away. LifeFlight got her there in five minutes.
Doctors at a Rockport hospital delivered baby Kyra with a C-section. Kyra’s heart was beating but she wasn’t breathing, so they resuscitated her. Then she had seizures and had to be transported to a larger neonatal hospital wing in Portland. Meanwhile after hours of surgery to find the source of her bleeding, doctors determined Megan had a pregnancy-induced renal artery aneurysm and temporarily stabilized it. LifeFlight then flew her to the same Portland hospital where Kyra was recuperating, and doctors there were able to save Megan’s kidney.
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Categories:
Company Profiles
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Oct
09
2018
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Posted by Admin
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Like the company she founded, Jan Smith is opportunistic. For example, Smith’s corporation S3 Inc. (AKA “S-cubed”) stands for System Studies and Simulation, but it evolved and grew greatly from a software developer startup that began in Smith’s Alabama house with only three employees (Smith first hired “me, myself, and I”) to a Huntsville-based corporation that follows the money to where it leads and now wholly owns three subsidiaries: Kachemak Bay Flying Services (KBFS), Global Logistics Support Services (GLSS), and S3 International Inc. (S3I).
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Categories:
Company Profiles
Human Interest
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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