In the early 1930s, when the 14-passenger DC-2 made its appearance, it was regarded as too big for anything but transcontinental operations, both from the standpoint of capacity and airport requirements. When its follow-on, the 21-passenger DC-3, came along, it sparked a mammoth new Federal Airport Programme, and several regional air carriers in the United States almost choked on red ink. Others merged into systems big enough to absorb this monster.

Had someone suggested that within a short span of three decades a helicopter carrying 28 passengers would be hedge-hopping around Southern California, operating day and night from “micro” airports, which we call heliports, I am afraid he would have been given a silent stare.