A Canadian Air Force CH-149 Cormorant and two U.S. Coast Guard MH-60T Jayhawks on March 3 rescued more than two dozen fishermen from a sinking ship 130 miles south of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Lt. Craig Campbell was piloting one of those Jayhawks on what would be his first major rescue mission. He tells "Rotor Radio" what it was like hovering at 90 feet in 55-knot winds while hoisting survivors from a bucking ship, without power or headway, taking 30-foot seas beam-on. 

When wildfires are at their worst, as they have been in recent years, there are few more potent weapons than the giant orange dragonfly that is the Erickson S-64 Air Crane.Erickson bought the manufacturing rights to the S-64 Sky Crane from Sikorsky in 1992, changed the name to Air Crane and has been building, operating and improving the 70-foot-long (21 meter) bus-faced heavy lift helicopter ever since.S-64 pilot and training captain Keith Gill joins Rotor Radio to discuss the unique...

Washington, D.C., is covered by some of the most restricted airspace in the world, but that doesn't prevent dozens of government agencies, the military, police, hospitals and other operators from flying helicopters over the U.S. capital. On any given morning, D.C.-area residents running, biking or walking their dogs along the Potomac River are treated to (or tormented by, depending on one's point of view) to helicopters flying the route into and out of the city.On the 10th episode of Rotor...

Billions of dollars worth of private capital investment is flowing into the development of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, spurred in large part by the futuristic, Jetsons-like vision of air taxis moving people around heavily congested cities. How much realism is there to this vision, and what other, perhaps more likely, applications will we see for these eVTOLs?Brian Garrett-Glaser, managing editor of Vertical's sister publication eVTOL.com joins Rotor Radio to...

When, in early 2020, the world locked down in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to stem the spread of Covid-19, concern rippled through the helicopter industry that pilot training would be limited or even impossible. Navigating the resulting maze of mandated travel restrictions at all levels of government, Oregon-based Hillsboro Aero Academy and other flight schools initially shut down but shortly resumed operation as an essential business, feeding new pilots into an aviation sector that was...

Don Grove, Bell's chief tiltrotor test pilot and lead test pilot for the V-280 Valor, and Frank Lazzara, director of V-280 sales and strategy, join Rotor Radio to answer listener questions about the prototype aircraft that is competing to become the U.S. Army's Future Long Range Assault Aircraft and replace the venerable UH-60 Black Hawk.

Brian Diaz, the Airbus resident UH-72 Lakota guru at Fort Rucker, the Army’s Aviation Center of Excellence and its rotorcaft school, joins Rotor Radio to discuss the helicopter, its history with the Army and how it is used to train future military rotorcraft pilots. 

When Shell began its Deepwater Drilling Project in Mexican Waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the company needed to contract for civilian search-and-rescue services that the country did not then offer.  In a first for Mexico, a handful of companies have joined forces to provide the first non-governmental SAR service to drilling rigs off its shores, according to Chris MacKay, owner and international operations manager for Total Response Solutions, based in New Brunswick, Canada.  TRS is contracted...

There are few situations more dangerous for a helicopter pilot than flying into bad weather, a fog bank or other situation with zero visibility, where the mind can literally make up feel like down and right feel like left. Such spatial disorientation is a huge problem in the helicopter industry and may has been implicated as a factor that led to the crash in which Kobe Bryant, his teenage daughter and seven other people perished earlier this year. On this episode of Rotor Radio, we speak to...

Current president of the Army Aviation Association of America (Quad-A) and retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Jeff Schloesser joins Rotor Radio to discuss the current state of Army aviation, future vertical lift technologies and more.Schloesser retired from service after 34 years that included commanding the 101st Airborne Division and Regional Command-East in Afghanistan and serving as assistant division commander of the 101st in Iraq. He commanded two Army Special Operations Aviation Battalions...

Sikorsky for decades has been developing and testing X2 technologies that have proven a coaxial main-rotor helicopter can fly as fast or faster than a turboprop airplane. That investment has resulted in the S-97 Raider and SB>1 Defiant that are competing against equally robust prototypes to be the future of military rotorcraft. The chief engineer on all of those programs and the test pilot who flew them speak to Vertical. 

Vertical discusses flying helicopters for Hollywood with veteran stunt pilot Aaron Fitzgerald, also one of a few people on earth qualified to perform helicopter aerobatics like flips, rolls and other maneuvers rotorcraft aren't traditionally supposed to pull.