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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Mark Huber

<a href="https://www.bjtonline.com/business-jet-news/f-lee-bailey" target="_blank">F. Lee Bailey</a>, 87, the high-profile defense lawyer and aviator who also owned the Enstrom Helicopter company for nearly a decade, died yesterday in Atlanta. Some of Bailey’s more notorious legal clients included Dr. Sam Sheppard, Army captain Ernest Medina, kidnapped heiress Patricia Hearst, and former NFL football player O.J. Simpson.&nbsp;

 


Bailey and a group of investors acquired Enstrom in 1971. There, he hired a talented team of young executives and engineers, including Alfred Checci, who later would serve as co-chairman of Northwest Airlines, to revive a piston helicopter design that dated back to the 1950s. Bailey also hired Medina, whom he had successfully defended during the My Lai (Vietnam) Massacre trial, to head up sales and marketing.

 


Under Bailey’s tenure, Enstrom launched the 280FX “Shark,” increased production to 100 helicopters per year, and began work on a four-seat piston design known as the 280L “Hawk” that was never completed and drove the company into financial distress. He also launched a series of controversial photo promotions for Enstrom that called it “the love machine.”&nbsp;

 


Bailey sold the company in 1979 and was subsequently involved in other aviation ventures, including the “Bailey Bullet” Piper Twin Comanche remanufacture program and aircraft completion center Oxford Aviation.

News and issues regarding all manner of civil and military rotorcraft and their powerplants, including helicopters, tilt rotors and unmanned air vehicles.

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News and issues concerning general aviation, specifically airplanes and helicopters powered by piston and alternative engines (i.e., non-turbine powered aircraft). Subjects include aircraft, engines, personnel, acquisitions, accidents, safety, security and training.

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News and issues relating to the aerospace industry that are related to the science, engineering and business of flight in space involving civil, industrial and military applications, and similar topics related to flight in the atmosphere of the Earth that are not covered more directly by other AINonline subject channels. In other words, both astronautical and aeronautical subjects, except for those aeronautical topics that are specifically covered elsewhere on this website.

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New developments and products in avionics, specifically about aircraft electronics in the cockpit.

News and issues relating to business, corporate and private aviation, primarily regarding turbine-engine-powered airplanes and helicopters. Subjects include aircraft, engines, maintenance, operations, personnel, acquisitions, accidents, safety, security, and training.

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