In August of 2009 when I opened Helicopter Highlights, I was expecting to put up no more than six or eight posts and some pictures from a few jobs that I had been on and then call it a day. Then the search engines locked on.
A touch of nostalgia for the Viking Helicopters Ltd. that I knew and worked for prompted me to start this site. Judging by the number of visitors coming by, it was a wise decision.
Here are some links to a couple of pictures of the original Viking Helicopters hanger in 1969, west of Orleans. We called it the old barn, which is exactly what it was.
From carrier landings in WWII; flying S-55s in Korea; Vertols and Spartan Air Services in the '50s; 47s and forest fires in the 60s; starting companies in the 70s - Pete has been there. He describes it all in his book and ends up covering much of the development of the early helicopter industry in Canada. Read the review and then download a copy of Pete's book A Flying Story.
New images submitted
Al Nelson, former Midwest GM, sent me an emal with a link to some Midwest Helicopter pictures. They're at the bottom of the page here. You can read more about Midwest Helicopters here.
Rick Tyefisher, at the time a young apprentice with Lambair Ltd. out of Thompson, has submitted some of his photos of the big show known as Dryden-18 in 1974. Thanks, Rick. View them here.
VikingAmerica - Does anyone have any information?
During the summer of 1980, Bill McKeever flew this helicopter in Hope BC. It was in Kansas City, MO the previous winter. Does anyone have any information on VikingAmerica? Please contact the author if you do.
Due to the tremendous popularity of this site, it would be beneficial to my bandwidth if many of you would not download, day after day, multiple copies of the same image. One copy should be sufficient. I'm more than happy to be able to contribute watermarked and copyrighted images from this site for personal use. Thanks.