Industry Spotlight Aviation
opened one of the world’s most powerful
structures to dynamically balance helicopter
rotor blades. The bi-directional whirl tower
enables helicopter operators and manufacturers to rebalance rotor blades in the U.S.
regardless of the rotorcraft’s country of origin.
Innovative Aviation
American Eurocopter traces its North Texas
roots to 1969, when Vought Helicopters was
organized to sell and service Aerospatiale
helicopters in the U.S. and North America.
The company has changed names a couple
of times, due to corporate divestitures and
mergers, but over the years gradually achieved
a solid foothold in the U.S. commercial helicopter market. Its first big contract came in
1979 when it won a competition to provide
a search-and-rescue helicopter, the Dauphin,
for the U.S. Coast Guard.
Those aircraft are still a mainstay of the
Coast Guard’s fleet. They have been upgraded many times over the years and provided
with new engines produced by Turbomeca, a
French-owned company located next door to
American Eurocopter in Grand Prairie with
roughly 500 employees.
For more than a decade, American Eurocopter has been the leader in sales and deliveries of new civil/commercial helicopters to the
U.S. market. Its parent company, Eurocopter,
is the world’s leading helicopter manufacturer.
American Eurocopter uses its headquarters in Grand Prairie as a major training
center for commercial pilots, particularly air
medical and law enforcement. The company
trains about 1,200 pilots and 900 aircraft
maintenance personnel annually. That includes Army and National Guard crews that
fly and maintain the UH-72A Lakota aircraft.
In June 2012, American Eurocopter held
a demonstratio