HAI is coming into this year’s Heli-Expo celebrating its 70-year heritage with a continued focus on safety as its core mission and myriad issues on its plate from workforce shortages to IFR approvals in single-engine helicopters, says Matt Zuccaro, president and CEO of the association.
The association, founded in 1948 with a gathering of a handful of operators and a Bell representative in Burbank, California, commemorated its 70th anniversary on December 13. While the septuagenarian association has hosted conventions ever since, this year is marking a first for Heli-Expo: its initial appearance in Atlanta.
Its venues have varied over the years, but as Heli-Expo has grown, it has become limited in its options and more recently has rotated among about a little more than a handful of cities: Anaheim, Orlando, Las Vegas, and Dallas among the most frequent of locales. Heli-Expo now requires about one million square feet that houses displays from the more than 700 annual exhibitors, nearby hotel rooms that can accommodate an annual attendance of around 18,000 people, and the ability to bring the roughly 60 helicopters into the show floor.
This year’s venue meets those requirements, as well as others, such as a central location for operators and a number nearby attractions, including neighboring College Football Hall of Fame, the site of the opening members reception.
Zuccaro has been upbeat about prospects for this year’s venue in the month’s leading up to it. “We're very encouraged by the numbers that we track compared to the other years and it looks like we've got a great response in terms of the indices we use to measure the show and so we're going to have a great crowd,” he said. “We’re going to have a full floor of exhibitors.”
As always, he stressed, safety is the number one priority for the association and a focal point of Heli-Expo, including the return of its Rotor Safety Challenge that is designed to encourage participation in the nearly 40 safety sessions that will take place over the three-day expo. Those attending six sessions over the course of Heli-Expo qualify for a Rotor Safety Challenge certificate. The challenge comes in addition to safety committee meetings, workshops, and other events that will highlight safety.
Legislative Agenda
But while focus remains on safety, Heli-Expo will focus on another mission of the association, Zuccaro said: making sure that “operator members are not overburdened with legislative and regulatory initiatives.”
HAI returns to Heli-Expo after capping an intense lobbying campaign to combat user fees and secure a long-range FAA reauthorization bill. The bill that passed last fall marked the first five-year FAA reauthorization in decades. “We're very proud of the fact that we worked with the other general aviation associations and we're able to prevent that [user fees] from coming into play,” he said, “We don't really have any delusion that it's gone away, but certainly, for the time being, it's not going to happen. And that's a good thing for us.”
The five-year bill had a multitude of measures, including a number affecting helicopter operators that Zuccaro said will likely be addressed either through various sessions or at the annual Meet the Regulators session that will be held this year on March 7.
One key regulatory initiative before the association is the possible rewrite of Part 27 and 29 regulations governing helicopter certification. “We think that's long overdue. They haven’t been updated in decades.” HAI is pushing for the update to accommodate new technology and advancements that have taken place over time. “We also would like to see an effort to unify those two regulations and break them down as appropriate by parameters or protocols that recognize the different technology, size, and weight of these aircraft.” He is hoping to see a more formal process for the rewrite take shape this year, such as the creation of an Aviation Rulemaking Committee.
Additionally, HAI is pushing for a simplified path for IFR of single-engine aircraft, which he said would bring the “safe environment of IFR to down to the single-engine helicopter category.” This has industry support, and operators and manufacturers are collaborating on means to enable more helicopter IFR missions. While not all missions lend themselves to IFR, he said, “There's a lot of opportunities for us to increase being in that environment.”
Noise remains on the forefront, he further said. While the reauthorization bill addressed about a half-dozen noise initiatives of interest to helicopter operators—including another look at the North Shore helicopter route over Long Island, New York—many more farther-reaching and restrictive measures were defeated. “We have obligations and we have a responsibility to the communities that we operate over and within. We take that very seriously,” he said “Our frustration is that the initiatives that the legislative people come up with are not based on any science whatsoever. There're no studies that are ever done. This is nothing but a shoot from the hip.”
Zuccaro reiterated that the majority of complaints come from a small segment of the population. Noise complaints hotlines have highlighted that hundreds of calls can come from a single source. At the same time, these hotlines can showcase real noise issues that operators may be able to address. Many of these issues will be reviewed at a three-hour Fly Neighborly Forum scheduled on March 5.
Next-generation Challenges and Opportunties
Another HAI focus has been on unmanned flight. HAI created a member category for unmanned operations and is actively involved in numerous advisory committees and working groups. Heli-Expo further will host several sessions focused on unmanned issues. “Our members every day are becoming more proficient in the operation of drones and creating subsidiaries and departments within their company to offer those service,” he said. “It has worked out really well.” But at the same time, HAI has been involved with the safe integration into the airspace.
In addition to the UAS committee meeting to be held on March 6, Heli-Expo will feature sessions ranging from UAS integration to Part 107 ground school for the new generation of operators.
Central on everyone’s minds coming into this Heli-Expo is the pilot and maintenance technician shortage. HAI documented this during last year’s Heli-Expo, releasing a study conducted with the University of North Dakota that found a potential for a shortage of 7,600 helicopters pilots and as many as 40,600 mechanics in the U.S. over the next 18 years. “We already knew pretty much what the results were. We wanted to confirm it with some real high-end analysis to give us a better idea of what the numbers were,” Zuccaro said.
Not only is the rotorcraft market facing a shortage of new pilots coming in but also stiff competition from other sectors. “The airlines are aggressively recruiting helicopter pilots who are not even qualified and they're paying for their crossover training. They value the skills of helicopter pilots,” he said. “So we're in a competitive environment.”
HAI’s affiliate organization Helicopter Foundation International has established a number of programs to capture the interest of the next generation, Zuccaro noted. At Heli-Expo, educational and professional development sessions will be held, as well as the annual military to civilian forum scheduled on the eve of this year’s convention. The forum tends to draw a standing-room-only crowd. This is in addition to networking opportunities that are ongoing throughout the convention, as well as the career and mentoring fair scheduled for all day on March 5.
As all of these issues come together in Atlanta, Zuccaro stressed that he remains encouraged by the state of the industry. “We obviously monitor the offshore industry, which is so closely tied to the price of a barrel of oil and what's going on in the international community. Also not to be ignored is the situation with some of the fleets and the leasing companies,” he said.
But he also noted the breadth of the rotorcraft industry and operations. “We've been through these cycles and the good news is we're very diverse, we're flexible, and we're survivors,” Zuccaro said. “We're optimistic about the future.”