17. V-107 CERTIFICATION CREW

This is the only photo I have of a New York Airways aircraft.  This group of people are most of the key people in the Certification program.

There are a couple of names I can’t remember, but included in this group are the Manufacturing Manager, Quality Control Manager, a Project Engineer, the Flight test Engineering Manager, three Test Engineers, (Tom Greene to my left), two Boeing pilots, two FAA pilots, an FAA inspector, and two FAA engineers.

This is the same model aircraft, but not the one we had on so many demonstrations. This was the New York  No. 1.

Charles Kessler is a retired flight test engineer for Boeing’s Vertol helicopter division (formerly Piasecki Helicopter Co.). He joined Piesecki in 1947, in the company’s fourth year, and retired from Boeing in 1983. During his 37-year career he took part in the testing of prototypes and alterations of such models as the CH-47 Chinook and Sea Knight, the H-16, HRP-2, and the V-107. He taught the stability augmentation system to the German Luftwaffe. He has written about his experience in a blog called “Early Helicopter Years,” which can be found at http://helicopterstory.blogspot.com/.