After 64 years of operation, Enstrom Helicopter had declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy in January 2022 after orders dried up and its China-based owner, Chongqing Helicopter Investment Corporation (CQHIC), declined to continue supporting the company. However, the company was rescued in April by entrepreneur, businessman, philanthropist and musician Chuck Surack, founder of Surack Enterprises, about eight weeks earlier (see “Surack Buys Enstrom,” Vertiflite, July/Aug 2022, https://evtol.news/news/return-to-osh....

Surack’s affiliation with Enstrom began about 15 years ago when he saw a friend fly an Enstrom 480B at an airshow and decided to learn to fly helicopters when he celebrated his 50th birthday. He took his flight training in an Enstrom and bought a brand-new turbine-powered Enstrom 480B for personal use.

“I think the Enstrom is a great helicopter,” he explained. “It’s one of the safest in the world. It’s got a high inertia rotor [and] it’s really, really easy to fly. It’s very forgiving. Autorotations are just so much smoother than some of the other helicopters. And I knew, based on its history and track record, that it’s a great company. And I love that it’s [now] an American company on American soil with American people working at it. And I just saw great opportunity to save the jobs in Northern Michigan and bring the helicopter back to life. It deserves to be prominent in the helicopter world.”

By late July, Enstrom had hired 70 employees to produce spare parts to fill outstanding orders for its global customers. Surack has also challenged the company to build two helicopters by the end of 2022 and plans to build 24 new helicopters in 2023. Surack recently bought back a used 480B for use as a sales demonstrator.

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