Bill Wagstaff

Latest from Bill Wagstaff

Rotorcraft

Sikorsky’s S-92 program homes in on certification

It’s been a busy month for Sikorsky’s S-92 development team as the project moves toward approval by year-end.
Rotorcraft

Rotocraft Update: Hold that Tiger

Just weeks after proclaiming its market dominance at HAI’s Heli-Expo 2002, Eurocopter took a hit in its sales column with the news that France and Germany
Rotorcraft

Rotorcraft Update: It's a gas

In certain oil-rich regions of Russia and its federated republics, natural gas is so abundant that it is treated as a waste product of the crude-oil extrac
Accidents

Rotorcraft Update: PHI accident claims pilot

Petroleum Helicopters pilot Charles Getchell, 56, of Milton, Fla.
Rotorcraft

Rotorcraft Update: Good news for Long Island east enders

Once asked his opinion of the almost 200-mi island stretching from the towers of Manhattan to the wet salt marshes and massive summer homes that are the pl
Accidents

Rotocraft Update: Turbomeca demo flight kills two

A Eurocopter AS 350 helicopter crashed at the Tarnos, France factory of engine maker Turbomeca on March 26, killing company test pilot Eric Fortier, 41, an
Safety

Using your head when it comes to your heart

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) claims nearly a million lives a year in the U.S.
Rotorcraft

Unions-Yea or Nay?

Next to fighter jocks, helicopter pilots are probably the most iconoclastic flavor of aviators flying today.
Rotorcraft

Rotorcraft Update: Hangar time for tiltrotors

While Bell Helicopter and program partner Agusta Aerospace are pondering their next moves in the ongoing saga of tiltrotor development (see page 1),
Rotorcraft

Rotorcraft Update: New York mayor logs more helo stick time

No stranger to the skies, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s piloting skills are part of his well known resume.
Rotorcraft

Rotorcraft Update: Rotorin' Romanian seeks helo to feed his need for speed

By now all the major arguments for helicopter use are well established, right? Time-saving hops over crowded urban areas.
Rotorcraft

Rotorcraft Update: Keystone allies with investment group

Pledging to build already successful long-time central Atlantic coast helicopter support and repair operation Keystone Helicopter into a $350 million busin
Rotorcraft

Rotorcraft Update: Hindustan helo surfaces at last

In the latest development of a helicopter program that could best be described as “better late than never,” Indian state-owned aerospace builder Hindustan
Rotorcraft

Rotorcraft Update: Schweizer introduces improved 300CB variant

Working in its own quiet low-key way, Schweizer Aircraft has revealed its new 300CBi.
Rotorcraft

Gulf Coast oil support struggles to keep its footing amid uncertain times

Taking the pulse of the offshore oil industry is like grabbing a handful of the viscous mud drillers use for lubrication in the drilling process.
Rotorcraft

EH 101, NH 90 helos get the Nordic nod

Scandinavian countries are famous for going their own way and it seems only fitting that one of what was originally four nations participating in the Nordi

Strike stops Bombardier jet production

Walking away from a wage settlement endorsed by their own union leadership, 8,000 rank and file members of Local 712 of the International Association of Ma
Rotorcraft

Bell shelves civil tiltrotor indefinitely

Stating that “the V-22 must lead tiltrotor technology into the marketplace,” Bell Helicopter has opted to shelve its BA609 civil tiltrotor following first
Rotorcraft

Officers found liable in Marine Osprey inquiry

Three of the eight U.S.
Accidents

Columbia Helicopters BV-107 Crash Claims Three

A Boeing Vertol BV-107 operated by Columbia Helicopters of Portland, Ore., crashed in August during a maintenance check flight in southern Montana, killing
Rotorcraft

Helicopter Plan Enrages North Sea Rescue Vessel Operators

For those toiling for oil on the roiling North Sea, the stormy nature of that piece of water keeps the possibility of rescue constantly in mind.
Rotorcraft

Carroll Suggs Sells Off Controlling Interest in PHI

An era has ended in the helicopter offshore oil-support business with Carroll Suggs, wife of Petroleum Helicopters Inc.
Rotorcraft

Bell Announces Layoffs

Bell Helicopter Textron last month announced plans to lay off 270 workers at its Fort Worth-area plants.
Rotorcraft

NASCAR needs helos to move

The men and women who race cars on the Nascar circuit are addicts.
Rotorcraft

PZL-Swidnik’s turbine single helo certified

More than a decade-and-a-half after PZL-Swidnik introduced it to the Western world in 1985, the Polish helicopter manufacturer’s Ecureuil-like SW-4 turbine
Rotorcraft

Rotorcraft Update: U.S. corporate helo hit by ground fire

A helicopter owned and operated by U.S.
Accidents

Rotorcraft Update: Beloved French baker killed in helo crash

French baking baron Lionel Poilane was killed November 7 when the Agusta 109C he was piloting crashed into the sea off Brittany, France’s northwestern coas
Rotorcraft

Rotorcraft Update: Aeromed pioneer passes on

Ellsworth “Dutch” Kuhlman, the hospital executive who in 1972 founded the Flight for Life medical airlift program at Denver’s St.
Safety

Rotorcraft Update: Emergency AD grounds Bell 407 fleet

Once again, an emergency AD (No.