Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport is a public airport six miles (10 km) east of downtown Amarillo, in Potter County, Texas, United States. The airport was renamed in 2003 after NASA astronaut and Amarillo native Rick Husband, who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in February of that year.
Helijet International is a helicopter airline and charter service based in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. Its scheduled passenger helicopter airline services operates flights from heliports at Vancouver International Airport (YVR), downtown Vancouver, downtown Nanaimo and downtown Victoria. It also operates a charter division serving the film, television, aerial tour, industrial and general helicopter and corporate jet charter markets, as well as helicopter and jet air ambulance services. Its head office and main hangar is Vancouver International Airport (YVR).
Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport is a public airport 14 miles (23 km) north of the central business district of Fort Worth, Texas, United States. The airport is owned by the City of Fort Worth and managed by Alliance Air Services, a subsidiary of Hillwood Development, and is, in size, the second-largest airport facility in North Texas, behind only Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW).
The Bell 206 is a family of two-bladed, single- and twin-engined helicopters, manufactured by Bell Helicopter at its Mirabel, Quebec, plant. Originally developed as the Bell YOH-4 for the United States Army's Light Observation Helicopter program, it was not selected by the Army. Bell redesigned the airframe and successfully marketed the aircraft commercially as the five-place Bell 206A JetRanger. The new design was eventually selected by the Army as the OH-58 Kiowa.
The Bell 407 is a four-blade, single-engine, civil utility helicopter. A derivative of the Bell 206L-4 LongRanger, the 407 uses the four-blade, soft-in-plane design rotor with composite hub developed for the United States Army's OH-58D Kiowa Warrior instead of the two-blade, semi-rigid, teetering rotor of the 206L-4.
The Bell 427 is a twin-engine, multirole, light utility helicopter designed and manufactured by Bell Helicopter and Samsung Aerospace Industries. It has been replaced in production by the larger Bell 429.
The first aerial circumnavigation of the world was completed in 1924 by four aviators from an eight-man team of the United States Army Air Service, the precursor of the United States Air Force. The 175-day journey from April to September covered over 26,345 miles (42,398 km). The team generally traveled east to west, around the northern-Pacific Rim, through to South Asia and Europe and back to the United States. Airmen Lowell H. Smith and Leslie P. Arnold, and Erik H. Nelson and John Harding Jr. made the trip in two single-engined open-cockpit Douglas World Cruisers (DWC) configured as floatplanes for most of the journey. Four more flyers in two additional DWC began the journey but their aircraft crashed or were forced down. All airmen survived. They were all awarded the Mackay Trophy aviation award for 1924.
The Bensen B-8 is a small, single-seat autogyro developed in the United States in the 1950s. Although the original manufacturer stopped production in 1987, plans for homebuilders are still available as of 2019. Its design was a refinement of the Bensen B-7, and like that aircraft, the B-8 was initially built as an unpowered rotor-kite. It first flew in this form in 1955, and on 6 December a powered version, designated B-8M first flew. The design proved to be extremely popular and long-lasting, with thousands of sets of plans sold over the next thirty years.
The Bell 47 is a single-rotor single-engine light helicopter manufactured by Bell Helicopter. It was based on the third Bell 30 prototype, which was the company's first helicopter designed by Arthur M. Young. The 47 became the first helicopter certified for civilian use on 8 March 1946. The first civilian delivery was made on 31 December 1946 to Helicopter Air Transport. More than 5,600 Bell 47s were produced, including those under license by Agusta in Italy, Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Japan, and Westland Aircraft in the United Kingdom. The Bell 47J Ranger is a modified version with a fully enclosed cabin and tail boom.
Henry Ross Perot Jr. is an American businessman and real estate developer best known for his development of Alliance, Texas, an inland port near Dallas–Fort Worth, and for making the first circumnavigation of the world in a helicopter, at age 23.
Scholes International Airport at Galveston is three miles southwest of Galveston, in Galveston County, Texas, United States. The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a reliever airport.
The Bell XV-3 is an American tiltrotor aircraft developed by Bell Helicopter for a joint research program between the United States Air Force and the United States Army in order to explore convertiplane technologies. The XV-3 featured an engine mounted in the fuselage with driveshafts transferring power to two-bladed rotor assemblies mounted on the wingtips. The wingtip rotor assemblies were mounted to tilt 90 degrees from vertical to horizontal, designed to allow the XV-3 to take off and land like a helicopter but fly at faster airspeeds, similar to a conventional fixed-wing aircraft.
The Bell 214ST is a medium-lift, twin-engine helicopter descended from Bell Helicopter's ubiquitous UH-1 Huey series. Though it shares a type number with the somewhat-related Bell 214, the 214ST is larger and of quite different appearance.
Texas Gulf Coast Regional Airport, previously known as Brazoria County Airport, is a county-owned public-use airport in unincorporated Brazoria County, Texas, United States, in Greater Houston, located 4 miles (6.4 km) southwest of the central business district of Angleton and north of Lake Jackson.
Richard Harold Smith is an Australian entrepreneur and aviator. He is the founder of Dick Smith Electronics, Australian Geographic and Dick Smith Foods. Smith has had a long interest in aviation and holds a number of world records in the field. A major philanthropist, he supports a number of charities and conservation efforts.
The Bell 505 Jet Ranger X (JRX) is an American/Canadian light helicopter developed and manufactured by Bell Helicopter. The Bell 505 was unveiled at the 2013 Paris Airshow in June 2013 as the Bell SLS. The Bell 505 designation was officially announced in February 2014. Its first flight occurred on November 11, 2014. The helicopter was certified by Transport Canada in December 2016. By 2023 about 500 have been sold, popular uses so far include for personal, sightseeing, law enforcement, and training.
CareFlite is a nonprofit ambulance service based in Grand Prairie, Texas, which operates throughout North and Central Texas. CareFlite's original namesake service is helicopter air ambulance, though today it also performs fixed-wing and ground transport.
On 24 July 2000, a Bell Helicopter Company 206L-3 LongRanger rescue helicopter, owned by Grant Kenny Ocean Helicopters and leased by the Capricorn Helicopter Rescue Service, crashed at Marlborough, Queensland, killing all five people on board.
Thomas W. Luce III is an American lawyer, government official, non-profit executive, and former advisor to H. Ross Perot. He is CEO of Biotech Initiatives at Lyda Hill Philanthropies.
