Corporate Climbers

With enhanced safety features and remarkable levels of refinement, the incoming class of executive helicopters is putting an exciting new spin on business aviation.

- Basem Wasef

AT SOME POINT between the original Magnum, PI and its current reboot, helicopter travel went from loud and ruggedly dangerous to disarmingly smooth, quiet and sophisticatedat least at the highest end of the market. Years of design and engineering improvements have imbued modern business choppers with levels of safety, luxury and speed that make them increasingly viable alternatives to fixed-wing aircraft. And when COVID-19 hit, the corporate whirlybird became even more appealing.

"On the heels of the pandemic, customers found helicopters to be the most private way to travel, skipping airport terminals or FBOs (fixed-base operators) altogether," says a spokesperson for Bell Helicopters. The numbers bear this out. A total of 27 corporate helicopters across manufacturers were delivered to US customers in 2020, but that number had nearly doubled to 50 just two years later.