June 23, 2011: A Letter from Canada

Maynard Swedgan

We recently received a letter from our first Canadian customer. He has been building his own Hummingbird for a little over a year now. He wanted to share his kind words with all of you that are thinking about building your own helicopter.

Hi,

First of all, I would like to thank Vertical Aviation Technologies staff for being so helpful with any questions that I have had while constructing my HUMMINGBIRD HELICOPTER.

I am a private helicopter pilot with approximately 300 hrs. of piston powered helicopters. This is currently my second amateur built helicopter that I have constructed. My first helicopter was a Safari helicopter that I flew for about 250 hrs.

My family and I wanted to expand to a 4 seat helicopter that was reliable and safe, so I hopped on a plane and flew down to Sanford Florida, where I had firsthand experience of the Hummingbird helicopter.

A long time commercial helicopter pilot and friend, John, went down to Florida with me. {The more experience the better}. I thought that maybe 15000 hrs. experience would steer me in the right direction! The tour of the factory was excellent and operated very professionally. The next thing I knew, we were rolling out the factory ship for a demo ride!

The factory helicopter pilot, Dale, was very informative about the Hummingbird. He answered any questions honestly regarding the good (or bad) aspects of the machine.

The machine was very smooth in the run up with the 3 blades and wheeled landing gear, a change for me. I had a chance to ground taxi to the LZ, which was strange for about the first 50 feet. After that I settled right in. It was just like driving down the street, NEAT!

Into a hover, it was very smooth and easy to control. Within about 2 minutes, I had us into forward flight. I found the machine to have no vibrations and smooth in flight. I also had the chance to experience auto rotations in this machine, which were very easy and smooth with a reasonably slow descent rate, great for a low time pilot. I returned to the airport with Dale, where my high timed friend then went out with for a demo. Upon their return, I asked John what he thought about the machine. In a few words he said “You need to own one of these!” He was very impressed with the performance and ride of this helicopter.

We had two more days before we had to return to Canada, and the staff welcomed us to stop in any time before we went back. The decision was made to have the Hummingbird be my next project.

The first stage was ordered about 6 months later.

After building 2 helicopters, the most important thing to seek out while choosing is to look at the history of any type you choose to buy, the performance, and the safety. The drive train is also very important. The Hummingbird exceeds these points. I guess it would, being a Sikorsky certified design!

The drawings and building instructions are also very important in constructing any aircraft. There again, Vertical Aviation Technologies delivers on this.

The first time I opened up my crates to inspect my kit helicopter was very exciting. I was very impressed with the packing of my helicopter, and my kids just loved all of the bubble wrap that was used in wrapping the components!

The drawings are all on draft size sheets that I placed on the walls while building.

I, myself, incorporated skid gear instead of wheels for my machine. With suggestions from President of VAT, Brad Clark, the end result was very well accomplished.

For me, skid gear was more appropriate on the ranch, not to say that wheeled landing gear would not get the job done though. My choice, being it is an amateur built helicopter. That is the beauty of it.

The prize at the end of your project is exhilarating. You have to keep that in focus while building your machine. There’s nothing like it to finish and fly your machine for the first time.

Being able to take off, fly and land where ever you would like, within reason, using it on the ranch for slinging, checking cattle, checking fences also has its advantages.

The best thing is that we now own a 4-seat helicopter for 1/2 the price of a certified 4 place helicopter and I built it!

Thank-you very much for all your help from Vertical Aviation Technologies Inc., Brad, Glenn, Mike, Dale, Laurel and Bethany.

Maynard Swedgan

Elk Point, Alberta, Canada