Bristow Goes Glass for R44s, Honors Hudson River Hero

The Bristow Academy in Titusville, Fla., is installing the Garmin G500H glass-panel avionics suite in its four Robinson R44 Raven 1 instrument training helicopters. Bristow operates one of the world’s largest offshore oil and gas helicopter services, and updating its training helicopters with the G500H will make it easier for pilots to transition into larger mainline helicopters that already have the latest glass-panel technology, the company said. Separately, Bristow honored graduate Michael Campbell last month. Campbell successfully autorotated a Bell 206L-4 LongRanger tour helicopter onto New York’s Hudson River in June after its engine apparently failed, without injury to his four passengers or substantial damage to the helicopter. Campbell graduated from Bristow in 2011.