Sunday, February 02, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

NEVADAN AT WORK: JERRY AIROLA -- Owner and president of Silver State Helicopters

Helicopter company boss living the sky life

Jerry Airola, president of Silver State Helicopters, sits in one of his whirlybirds. He uses his 19-helicopter fleet for flight training school, aerial construction and photography, tours and emergency medical services. Photo by SAMANTHA CLEMENS / REVIEW-JOURNAL

Jerry Airola wanted to fly helicopters ever since he became fascinated with the magnificent whirlybirds as a child.

He started taking lessons when he moved to Las Vegas in 1995, but when the instructor decided he would no longer rent out his only helicopter, Airola was left grounded.

With a license to fly but no means, Airola and three partners went in together to purchase a Robinson R-22 helicopter for $168,000 and turned their hobby into a business, forming Silver State Helicopters in 1999.

Airola bought out the last of his partners in November 2001 and has since expanded his fleet to 19 helicopters, using them for flight training school, aerial construction and photography, tours and emergency medical services.

Sometimes, he slips back into his former job as a California cop and uses his helicopters to intimidate people intending to illegally dump trash and hazardous material in the desert.

Often, just having a chopper on their tail is enough deterrence, he said.

"That's something that's a pet peeve of mine," he said. "It really irks me to see someone dumping in the desert. I'll go sift through their stuff for a letter or something to find their name and address."

Silver State Helicopters, which operates out of North Las Vegas Airport, currently has 42 full-time employees and 141 students in flight training.

Question: You've achieved incredible success in a relatively short time. How has that happened?

Answer: I guess we're just very aggressive. We're a very high-risk company. We believe you can't sit back and watch the grass grow. You've got to get out there and make things happen. I like to do things now, so when I put together a business plan, it's not a five-year plan, it's an 18-month plan. My goal is to be the biggest and best and most respected helicopter service in Las Vegas.

Question: Your business seems to be going in a lot of different directions. You've got the flight school, VIP charters, tours of the Strip and Grand Canyon, you've even volunteered your helicopters for the monitoring and protection of wild horses. What do you consider your core business? Where's your focus?

Answer: Our core business this year will be to focus on firefighting and law enforcement contracts. Those are our first two hurdles to get over in 2003, then we'll go after the air taxi market really heavy in 2004. And the flight school will always be a huge part of our company because it gives us the ability to train and hire our own people. It's almost a wash for what we pay to train someone and what we charge. What it does is allows us to get the right pilots, people with good work ethics. Think of how much it would save me if we save one crash (from happening).

Question: How much does a helicopter cost and how did you finance this company?

Answer: They start at about $350,000, for a small one. We've got six Sikorsky S-92s on order, and they're $15 million each. The first one won't be here until March 2004. It's the ultimate passenger helicopter. They carry 19 passengers, and we're going to do taxi service to Southern California and Phoenix and Northern California. We've also ordered four S-76s for short tours. They hold nine passengers.

Question: How did you grow the company?

Answer: With the money I had from selling the water purification company, I bought property in California and a larger helicopter. I bought an MD-500 because I wanted something that was fast and would easily fly over the 12,000-foot mountain range. I brought in an instructor, and with the money we made from lessons, that covered the (helicopter) payments.

Question: How did you structure your business model?

Answer: The first thing I did when I bought the (McDonnell Douglas) 500; it's a military gunship, the same one used by Metro. I hired a guy, Tim Nelson, a Metro officer but a very experienced veteran from Desert Storm, just to train me in this new helicopter to learn advanced flying skills. He suggested maybe I should start doing commercial work and he was willing to help out. I got a commercial license and contacted the sheriff's department in Calavares (Calif.) County and they contracted us to do drug abatement and some patrol.

After Sept. 11 is when we decided this would be a good opportunity to build the company because as people are laid off from work, it was a good time to hire. We have about 160 students here and in Salt Lake City. It takes about a year to become a flight instructor, and the starting wage is about $50,000. It takes another year to get a commercial license and do air taxi work. So in two years, you can get an education you wouldn't get in college and start making good money. And it's fun. It's not a job you dread every day.

Question: What's unique about your company?

Answer: One is that we do so many things. Most helicopter companies specialize in one thing, tours, charters. We do all of those.

Question: I've been reading about a lot of helicopter crashes lately. How much of a black eye is that for the industry and what can be done to improve helicopter safety?

Answer: It is a black eye, but here's what's interesting. There are crashes every day, small airplanes, but it's rare that they make the news unless there's 20 people killed or someone important. But if a helicopter crashes, it makes the news because it's the unknown. One thing people are amazed at is how they fly.

As far as safety is concerned, it's about education, both on the maintenance side and on the pilot side. If there's a crash, it almost always happens because of maintenance or pilot errors. Complacency will get you killed in this industry.