Mark Huber is an aviation industry veteran who has worked in the flight training, aircraft sales, aircraft component, and airport development businesses. He has flight time in more than 50 different and diverse aircraft, including helicopters, aerobatic aircraft, vintage warbirds, jet fighters, business jets and turboprops, and transport-category aircraft. He has jumped out of several of these—on purpose—with a parachute. His defense and aviation journalism has been published in a variety of national and international periodicals.

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Mark Huber

The products of Argentine helicopter maker Cicaré are on display at Heli-Expo for the first time this year, including its innovative SVH-4 training device and single-seat Model 7B kit helicopter. The company has appointed Deaga USA (Booth 4324) as its exclusive distributor. Deaga has recently opened an office and hangar at Falcon Field in Mesa, Arizona, where it intends to assemble and distribute the SVH-4, 7B, and ultimately other Cicaré models.


The SVH-4 is basically a Model 7B attached to an adjustable ground-based platform, which allows liftoff, then normal hover and hover taxi all at the safe controlled altitude of three feet agl. The FAA has approved the device for the first 10 hours of flight training, according to Cicaré’s Raul Oreste, chief commercial officer.


The SVH-4 provides the new helicopter student with numerous benefits over training in a conventional helicopter early on, he said.


“It makes it easier for the student because he doesn’t have the stress of the instructor or the stress of flying in a helicopter alone. It makes it so you are learning gradually,” Oreste said. “In the first stage it [the device] is locked on the floor. You can’t move so you can control only the collective and the pedals. The worst thing you can do is go around and around and around. So that is for two hours.”


Once the pedals are mastered, he added, “you can release the platform and you can move around with the cyclic. It makes it more friendly. It takes away that fear for a person who is starting from scratch.”


Deaga USA is a subsidiary of DEA General Aviation Holdings, a $1 billion publicly traded Chinese company with diversified aviation interests that include engine manufacturers Hirth and Mistral and aerobatic aircraft company XtremeAir. DEA holds the distributorship for Cicaré helicopters in China, Southeast Asia and North America. Chinese customers already have ordered 48 SVH-4s, and deliveries should commence from Arizona within several months, the company said. The price is estimated at approximately $150,000 each, and financing and leasing options likely will be available, a Deaga USA spokesman said.


The company noted that the SVH-4 had appeal beyond straight flight training, including for fixed-wing pilots who merely wanted to experience the sensation of rotorcraft flight in a relatively risk-free environment and as high-end entertainment.


Cicaré Helicopters patriarch Augusto Cicaré is also making his first appearance at Heli-Expo in more than 20 years. A self-taught engineer and pilot, Cicaré built and flew his first helicopter, the CH-1, in 1958. It was the first helicopter of South American origin. Oreste said the company hopes to have a certified, Part 27 two-seat aircraft available within "three to four years."&nbsp;

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