Mark Huber is an aviation industry veteran who has worked in the flight training, aircraft sales, aircraft component, and airport development businesses. He has flight time in more than 50 different and diverse aircraft, including helicopters, aerobatic aircraft, vintage warbirds, jet fighters, business jets and turboprops, and transport-category aircraft. He has jumped out of several of these—on purpose—with a parachute. His defense and aviation journalism has been published in a variety of national and international periodicals.

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Robinson Helicopter is working with aviation charity Operation Helo to establish a training curriculum for pilots of its aircraft tailored to the particulars of disaster-relief flying. Company CEO David Smith told AIN that the courses are being announced this week at VAI Verticon.
Operation Helo was formed in the immediate aftermath of the flooding generated by Hurricane Helene that decimated western North Carolina in late September. More than 100 privately owned helicopters participated in the relief effort, many of them Robinson R44s that were particularly suited to the event due to their ability to access compact landing zones.
Robinson worked with its customers, dealers, and service centers in the region to keep the 11-day operation supplied with parts, and Smith credits them for getting the job done. “For the most part, people were not needing a lot of help from us; they just did it,” Smith said.
In the weeks after the disaster, Smith and Matt McSwain, one of the founders of Operation Helo, began discussions about disaster-specific pilot and support personnel courses for the Robinson community. The courses would be geared toward operations in relief of specific types of disasters such as floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and fires.
Potential subjects to be covered include items such as aircraft loading, the impact of changing weather on aircraft performance, clearing tail rotors, obstacle identification and avoidance, mountain and canyon flying, and maneuvering in confined areas. “It’s the stuff the military does a really good job of,” Smith said. “I think we will probably have to adopt some of that.” Smith noted that many Robinson customers have military flight experience.
He said the courses would be part of a purpose-built program—“kind of a boot camp” for volunteer Robinson pilots. While Smith praised Operation Helo’s record of flying incident-free in North Carolina, he noted that safety should not be taken for granted going forward. “They did a great job with no safety mishaps, but you can’t count on that forever.”
Smith said that Robinson Helicopters also intends to assemble “go kits” for helicopter components commonly replaced in the field, such as gearboxes, blades, and drive shafts. During the thousands of flights conducted by Operation Helo in North Carolina, only one R44 was damaged, due to foreign object debris. But Smith wants to be prepared. “The next time, we might not be so lucky. We want to make sure we have components at the ready.”
According to Smith, the team at Robinson is excited about being a part of Operation Helo. “We are blessed to have a lot of customers and aircraft we can help better position for these purposes. We want to lead by example,” he said.

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