Helicopters

The Enstrom Model 480B‘s blend of forgiving flight qualities, turbine power and an almost six-foot-wide cabin help make it one of the most surprising light helicopters on the market today. Pilots love it, for all of the reasons just listed, as well as for its low operating costs and an exceptional safety record since its […]

It appears someone took a pot shot at a medevac helicopter flying over northern Ohio on Monday, an incident that federal law enforcement officials are taking very seriously but which was shrugged off by local police as probably nothing more than a lucky hit by a kid with a rifle. During a routine pre-flight inspection, […]

With the S-76D, Sikorsky has taken a classic helicopter and made it state of the art by incorporating a long list of technology improvements that designers say will keep the 35-year-old design fresh for years to come. Here’s a look at what’s new. Engines: Pratt & Whitney Canada PW210S Incorporating the latest advances in compressor […]

Despite the widespread adoption of Garmin’s integrated avionics systems in a variety of airplanes from four-place piston singles to turboprops and business jets, never before has the company’s G1000 glass cockpit flown in a helicopter. The conventional wisdom has always seemed to argue against shoehorning Garmin’s wide LCD flight displays into the tight confines of […]

(March 2011) — As an icy wind whipped from the Hudson River and buffeted the heliport’s aluminum chain-link fence with an unrelenting ferocity, settling into the cockpit of a Sikorsky S-76 instead of some lesser machine made me stop and appreciate the size and power of one of the best-selling helicopters of all time. “I’m […]

More than 20,000 rotorcraft aficionados descended on Orlando, Florida, for this year’s Heli-Expo, held at the Orange County Convention Center from March 6 to 8. Helicopter manufacturers unveiled several new models at the show and offered special pricing that for many apparently was too enticing to let pass. Eurocopter kicked things off with the introduction […]

How do you one-up the world’s best-selling helicopter, the Robinson R44? Simple. You put a turbine in it. But wait! … It wasn’t that easy. Talk of a “Robinson turbine” began swirling around the helicopter community clear back in 2001. But if you asked company CEO and founder Frank Robinson back then if the company […]

Eurocopter recently took the wraps off its developmental X3 helicopter. What’s unique is it’s configured with two forward-facing propellers on stub wings. At higher airspeeds, the lifting and thrusting duties are progressively shifted to the wings and props. This arrangement is meant to compensate for lost lift on the side of the retreating main rotor […]

At a press conference at this year’s Helicopter Association International (HAI) Convention in Houston, Robinson Helicopter CEO Frank Robinson gave a progress report on the company’s eagerly awaited R66 turbine helicopter, and the news is good. The program is on track for certification — in fact, there’s a chance it will be approved by the […]

With more than 50 helicopters on display, this year’s Heli-Expo bucked the worldwide recession in its own peculiar way. The rotorcraft industry has always been an economic enigma. It is fragmented into many diverse elements, including: training, corporate transport, emergency medical services (EMS), offshore oil support, electronic newsgathering, law enforcement, and utility (logging, pipeline work, […]