Rotorcraft
New Rotorcraft 2017
Flying the boundary layer

New Rotorcraft 2017

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In Louisville at last year’s Heli-Expo, the world’s largest helicopter trade show, it snowed. Many demonstration flights were canceled. From the dais at the annual awards dinner, industry gentry led the assembled in song, My Old Kentucky Home, a melancholic state ballad that can evoke weeping amongst the citizenry. Somehow it all seemed appropriate. Despite the brave public face the industry tried to project to the world last year, it was one of the worst in memory for the commercial helicopter business, fueled mainly by oil prices that sunk to a low of $26 per barrel before beginning a slow climb back to rationality, a domestic air ambulance industry that appears to have reached capacity and the continuing economic uncertainty worldwide.

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