KSwartz

Anyone still around from the Bullock Wings & Rotors or the early days of Alouette II operations use at James Bay? I remember Gaspar and Ian Powick were Aerospatiale sales reps in the 1970s and early 1980s. Ian has passed away. Anyone know where Gaspar might be ... or Dave Dunstad?

I'm writing a history presentation for the upcoming Vertical Flight Society (www.vtol.org) Forum 78 in May 2022 on the early history of Aerospatiale (Sud Aviation) and MBB Helicopters in North America and would like to interview helicopter industry pioneers who can help with my research. If you have first hand knowledge as a OEM employee, salesman, pilot, aircraft maintenance engineer, MRO, instructor, regulator, operator, owner, customer etc., please contact me at kennethswartz "at" me.com Here is an overview of the story I'm trying to research over the next two months. Sud Aviation brought the first turbine SE3130 Alouette IIs to North America in the late 1950s for demonstration to the US military, then in 1958 signed a licence agreement with Republic Aviation on Long Island, NY to sell the Alouette II in the US and Canada. The very first sale of a turbine helicopter in North America went to Autair Helicopters in Montreal, Quebec followed by a number of US operators and then Ontario Hydro in 1959. I understand that Alouette II sales dried up and product support collapsed in the early 1960s and most of the remaining Alouette were bought by Bullock Wings & Rotors in Calgary, which also held the Alouette II sales agency in the late 1960s. To jump start sales in Canada, in about 1966 Sud Aviation brought an Alouette II and Alouette III to North America in a Nord Noratlas cargo aircraft and made multiple stops across Canada to demonstrate the helicopters, selling three to the Department of Transport and some to Spartan and Skyrotors??. And in 1966, a French Alouette II was imported to film the movie "Helicopter Canada" screened at Expo 67 in Montreal. However, there were very few additional sales until Vought Helicopters in Texas obtains the distribution rights for the Aerospatiale line for the US and Canada in the late 1960s. That's when sales of the Alouette II and III, Lama, Gazelle, SA330 Puma etc. really pick up and Aerospaitiale eventually takes over the Vought's operation in Texas and builds a facility in Grand Prairie. This is when French helicopters re-appear in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, and help launch US EMS programs. The MBB story in North America starts in the early 1970s (?) when Boeing gets the distribution rights for the Bo 105. Later MBB Helicopter Corporation is formed in West Chester, PA and in 1992 merged with Aerospaitiale Helicopter Corp to form Eurocopter. I'd especially like to know more about the Republic Aircraft, Bullock, Vought, Boeing, and early MHC and AHC era ... which predates when I started writing articles for helicopter magazines like Helicopter International, Rotor & Wing , Helicopters, Vertical and Vertiflite). Best regards, Ken Swartz Toronto

Hagerstown, Maryland, not NJ

Okanagan operated nine or ten FH1100s. Bought one, then placed a fleet order for use out of their BC bases. Company pilots went back to Hagerstown, NJ to pick up the aircraft and ferry them to the Helicopter Association of America (HAA) convention in Las Vegas in early 1968, then north to Vancouver after the helicopter show. There were a few adventures flying north through Oregon in a snow storm. When the helicopters arrived in BC in early February 1968, they made a formation fly over of Okanagan President Glen McPherson's home on Marine Drive in West Vancouver (near Caulfield) before turning south towards Point Grey and landing at Vancouver Airport. I remember seeing them flying past West Bay as a kid but it was 20 years before I figured out what I had seen. The helicopters parked on the ramp near the old Okanagan Hangar at YVR, and were then moved inside. Good thing because on February 7, 1968, a Boeing 707 leased to Canadian Pacific Air Lines ran off the runway while landing and veered to the south right through the ramp area where the helicopters had been parked before colliding with some buildings. The FH1100 arrival also happened to coincide with Carl Agar's passing. Reflecting the psychedelic era, the FH1100s were painted in about eight different colours (white/green, white/red, white/blue), with the FH1100 assigned to Campbell River painted white and orange. This aircraft was lost in the bush and later easily spotted from the air because of its orange colours. I heard that this incident became the basis for Okanagan's adopting an orange and white colour scheme in the late 1960s, which later became overall orange colour in the early 1970s once the JetRangers arrived. Okanagan lost three FH1100s in fatal accidents and decided to drop the FH1100 from its fleet, trading the surviving aircraft to Bell for a fleet of new 206A JetRangers. The FH1100 became known as the "Killer Hiller" in BC. Some of the Okanagan FH1100s ended up in Alaska and others with Condor Helicopters in California which operated a large fleet from Oxnard. I believe that Canex Placer was one of the only BC based operators of the FH1100 in the 1970s until operated one for many years until replaced by an Astar. The last base for the FH1100 was in a hangar next door to North Delta Copters, north of the Town and Country Inn. The FH1100 was also operated by Kenting Klondike and did a lot of work on the Grand Duc Mine out of Stewart flown by Jim Lapinsky. The last two tone blue Kenting FH1100s were sold the Glen Pearson at Century Helicopters in Bellingham who had been a Fairchild Hiller tech rep when the FH1100 was first introduced in the 1960s. A couple of these ended up at the local spray operator at Bellingham Airport. Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting had a FH1100 based out of Flin Flon which replaced their S-55 which was wrecked in the 1960s. The FH1100 did a lot of bird towing work on geophysical survey jobs.I think this later ended up in BC. Roland Simard at Air Alma acquired a large fleet of FH1100s in the 1970s for use at James Bay. Most of these faded from the scene in the 1980s as James Bay work fell off. In the late 1970s or early 1980s (can't recall the date), the Thai Police Bell 204B and FH1100 fleet was acquired by Canadians (who?). The helicopters were unloaded from a ship and the 204Bs went directly to Calgary. The seven or nine FH1100s ended up on a farm south of the highway near Langley. I made a trek out to Langley to see them stored outside a barn (whose farm?) in about 1982 (?). Most of these FH1100s were later trucked to Calgary for refurbishment in the early to mid-1980s, and many went south to the US when the oil sector collapsed in the mid-1980s. xxx I'd like to track down any surviving Okanagan pilots or AMEs who were on the great FH1100 ferry flight of 1968. KIS