Enstrom Helicopter has a new owner. An ownership group that includes the owners of Midlothian, Texas-based MidTex Aviation has entered into an asset purchase agreement to acquire substantially all of the assets of Enstrom Helicopter and plans to reopen it in mid-April, it was announced yesterday at Heli-Expo 2022. Customer service could be restored earlier via Enstrom’s existing repair station certificate, perhaps later this month.
The asset purchase agreement was approved on Tuesday by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Michigan as part of Enstrom’s Chapter 7 process. After 64 years of near-continuous operation and building 1,300 helicopters, Enstrom filed for bankruptcy in January and said it would liquidate. MidTex expects to operate the helicopter manufacturer through a new entity, Enstrom Aerospace Industries.
“We are extremely excited about acquiring these assets, restarting the former Enstrom facility, and expanding the scope of the business,” said MidTex principal Ken Griffin, who owns an Enstrom helicopter. "We already have a number of former Enstrom employees working with us on a contract basis. After closing, we expect to make job offers to a substantial number of former Enstrom employees.”
The new company’s first priority will be providing product support to existing customers while continuing to work on FAA approval of a crash-resistant fuel system for its new-build model 480B turbine single. Crash-resistant fuel tanks became mandatory in 2020.
MD Helicopters is on track to deliver approximately 24 helicopters this year, closely matching its 2021 performance. The estimate includes a memorandum of understanding the OEM recently signed with Texas dealer Trinity Aviation to take 15 helicopters over the next five years.
The Mesa, Arizona OEM has spent the better part of the last two years focused on improving product support and quality, investing $24 million for a larger parts inventory, bettering its forecasting abilities, and applying the automotive industry process of Kaizen, or continuous improvement.
These results have paid off, according to CEO Alan Carr, who joined MD in 2020. The past-due backlog was reduced by 37 percent and fill rates improved from the mid-80 percent range to 92 percent. “Customer satisfaction has gone up,” Carr said. “Without good customer service, it is hard to sell your next helicopter. People speak. Taking care of our past takes care of our future as far as new sales.”
Under Carr’s leadership, managers were empowered to be more entrepreneurial and a customer “SWAT” team was set up to improve coordination between the supply team, operations, and programs “to get to the source of the problem as to where customer service was falling down,” he said. Product modernization programs for the MD902 and MD600 were shelved in favor of concentrating on its MD500-series singles, which Carr calls “our bread and butter.”
Engine repair specialist Ozark Aeroworks and Canadian MRO and leasing company Eagle Copters have acquired the type certificate and intellectual property of the T53 turboshaft engine from Honeywell Aerospace, the Springfield, Missouri-based company announced at a media briefing yesterday at Heli-Expo. The deal enables Ozark to continue to support and maintain the more than 50-year-old family of engines that power the Bell UH-1H Huey, Huey II, and AH-1H Cobra, as well as Kaman’s K-Max and Bell 204 and 205B helicopters.
There are about 1,800 T53s and its variants in use by the Air Force, foreign militaries, and civil operators, said Ozark president and CEO Ken Essary. For more than 30 years Eagle used T53 engines on its leased fleet and overhauled them but made the decision seven years ago to close the engine line, Eagle CEO Mike O’Reilly added at the briefing, and move the overhaul work to Ozark. Essary explained that Eagle provided “financial and contractual” support on the T53 deal.
With the type certificate in hand, Eagle and Ozark will use the opportunity to increase the reliability of the T53’s carbon seals and through discussions with customers, implement best practices into the engine’s maintenance manual, Essary said. They may also consider manufacturing new T53s although there is no immediate plan for that, he added.
StandardAero and Thales brought a working example of their to-be-certified StableLight four-axis autopilot for the AS350/H125 light single to Heli-Expo, the culmination of a multiple-year project between the MRO provider and the French avionics specialist. The autopilot—mounted on a test AS350 in white livery bearing the companies’ names as well as the StableLight brand across the tail boom—offers control of the helicopter type’s pitch, roll, yaw, and collective in a compact form.
During a demonstration flight Monday for AIN departing from the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center vertiport, Thales test pilots James Sleigh and Nicolas Couder demonstrated the autopilot’s capabilities including the StableClimb flight attitude recovery and terrain pull-up; and hands-off, feet-off flight modes. In one instance, the pilots engaged the autopilot’s automatic approach function to Lancaster Regional Airport outside Dallas, which ended in a 50-foot hover.
Christian Blagborne, StandardAero technical sales manager for helicopter programs, said the AS350 is a helicopter StandardAero has been working on for decades, due in part to its helicopter unit’s previous ownership, Vector Aerospace, which at one point was owned by the type’s OEM, Airbus. StableLight supplemental type certification from the FAA is expected this summer, with EASA and Transport Canada certification anticipated to follow shortly thereafter.
FAA STC approval for Garmin's GI 275 electronic flight instrument in Part 27 helicopters is imminent, the avionics manufacturer said this week at Heli-Expo. The GI 275 uses a common 3.125-inch flight instrument size, allowing convenient installation while preserving existing instrument panels. When installed as a primary attitude indicator, the instrument offers improved reliability, potential weight savings, and reduced maintenance compared to vacuum-driven attitude indicators.
“The GI 275 electronic flight instrument can provide helicopter owners and operators an impressive amount of information in a lightweight and compact design that’s easy to incorporate into a variety of panels,” said Carl Wolf, v-p of aviation sales and marketing for Garmin. “It’s an economical and scalable approach to upgrade your avionics, and we look forward to making this versatile touchscreen flight display available on even more rotorcraft soon.”
Optional helicopter synthetic vision technology overlays a 3D topographic view of terrain, traffic, obstacles, powerlines, airport signposts, and more within the display. The instrument also can display outside air temperature, groundspeed, true airspeed, and wind information. It can share GPS position and backup attitude information to the Garmin Pilot mobile application.
Garmin plans to soon make the GI 275 available for installation on some FAA-registered Part 27 helicopters, including the Bell 206. Additional approvals for the Airbus AS350 series and Robinson models are expected later this year.
The digital flip-through issue of AIN’s award-winning HAI Convention News is now available online. It’s a great way to quickly scan the news from HAI Heli-Expo 2022, whether you’re in Dallas attending the show or watching from afar.
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