Dallas Airmotive, building on the experience it had with its display at the NBAA convention last October, is rebuilding an engine at its Heli-Expo booth. This time, the Dallas-based repair and overhaul shop will rebuild a rotorcraft engine–the Rolls-Royce M250. “We had great success at NBAA with the PT6A,” said Dallas Airmotive president Doug Meador. “This will become one of the signatures of our displays.”
During the NBAA show the display brought in substantially more foot traffic, as much as three to four times what Meador said he had seen in the past. “It brought a lot of people by who didn’t know who we were,” he added. But also important, Meador said, is that the exhibit enables Dallas Airmotive to demonstrate the technical capabilities and knowledge of its staff.
For Heli-Expo, the company is bringing four dedicated staff, three technicians and one technical expert available to answer questions. The company will pace the rebuild over the three-day show, something that the smaller M250 engine permits.
A substantial amount of work goes into the development of the display, including a couple of practice runs in a simulated display environment. This enables the team to put the infrastructure to a full test run. “We try to mimic our shop the best we can,” Meador said.
The Heli-Expo display uses the same basic design of the NBAA display, but it also will incorporate new features based on lessons learned from the NBAA show. This includes more outreach with social media and the addition of a narrator who will be available to detail the work.
Amelia Rose Earhart, the pilot who last year circumnavigated the globe in a Pilatus PC-12 NG, has agreed to narrate the project, but her involvement with the display extends beyond that. Meador credits Earhart with coming up with the concept of the display in the first place. Her suggestion came during a PT6 anniversary celebration event late last summer, when aerobatic champion Kirby Chambliss had expressed an interest to Dallas Airmotive executives about how engines were built.
“I thought it was a fantastic idea,” Meador said, after discussing it with Chambliss, who is sponsored in part by Dallas Airmotive, and Earhart. He returned to his marketing-and-events team with the concept. “Everybody thought I was crazy,” he recalled, but the idea took root and in about a six-week timeframe, the company reconfigured the display, conducted trials runs on the PT6A and built a special hoist for the engine to bring to the NBAA show. “Basically we had to recreate that small area of real estate at the booth and get it completely done in six weeks,” Meador said. “When I think back at the timeframe, it was pretty crazy.”