New York Airways was an American helicopter

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers or freight (cargo). Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines ...

in the New York City area, founded in 1949 as a mail and cargo carrier. On 9 July 1953 it may have been the first scheduled helicopter airline to carry passengers in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, with headquarters at

LaGuardia Airport LaGuardia Airport ( ) – colloquially known as LaGuardia or simply LGA – is a civil airport in East Elmhurst, Queens, East Elmhurst, Queens, New York City, situated on the North Shore (Long Island), northwestern shore of Long Island, bord ...

. Although primarily a helicopter airline operator with scheduled passenger operations, New York Airways also flew fixed wing aircraft, such as the

de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter The de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter is a Canadian STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) utility aircraft developed by de Havilland Canada in the mid-1960s and still in production today. Built by De Havilland Canada from 1965 to 1988, Viking ...

19-passenger

STOL A short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft is a fixed-wing aircraft that can takeoff/land on short runways. Many STOL-designed aircraft can operate on airstrips with harsh conditions (such as high altitude or ice). STOL aircraft, including tho ...

twin turboprop aircraft.

History

Passenger flights started with

Sikorsky S-55 The Sikorsky H-19 Chickasaw (company model number S-55) is a multi-purpose piston-engined helicopter that was used by the United States Army and United States Air Force. It was also license-built by Westland Aircraft as the Westland Whirlwin ...

helicopters, with three Sikorsky S-58s added to its five S-55s in 1956; in 1958 the Boeing Vertol V-44, a 15-seat civil version of the

Piasecki H-21 The Piasecki H-21 Workhorse/Shawnee is an American helicopter, the fourth of a line of tandem rotor helicopters designed and built by Piasecki Helicopter (later Boeing Vertol). Commonly called "the flying banana", it was a multi-mission helicop ...

, took over. In 1962 they transitioned to the

tandem rotor A tandem-rotor aircraft is an aircraft with two large helicopter rotor assemblies mounted one in front of the other in the horizontal plane. This configuration is mainly used for large cargo helicopters. Such aircraft are often informally referr ...

, twin turbine engine powered Boeing Vertol 107-II Turbocopter and later operated the twin turbine engine

Sikorsky S-61 The Sikorsky S-61L and S-61N are civil variants of the Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King, SH-3 Sea King military helicopter. They were developed and produced by the American helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky Aircraft. The commercial version of the Sea King ...

. In February 1955 the one-way fare from LaGuardia to Idlewild was $4.50 ($ in dollars). The aircraft was a Sikorsky H-19, registration number N418A. The trip took ten minutes and their phone number was DEfender 5-6600. The first scheduled passenger flights to Manhattan arrived in December 1956 at the West 30th Street Heliport. The downtown heliport on East River Pier 6 opened in 1960 and New York Airways moved all its Manhattan passenger flights down there around December 1960. Due to route restrictions on the single-engine Vertol 44, nonstop flights from Manhattan to Idlewild (JFK) had to await the twin-engine Boeing Vertol 107. Moody's says in 1962 the "operating revenue" of $3.9 million included $2.2 million federal subsidy. In June 1964 they had 32 daily flights from JFK to Newark Airport and 33 returning; all flights each way between about 0900 and 1930 stopped at Wall Street. The only other flights were 15 round trips a day between JFK and the Port Authority building at the World's Fair, as La Guardia was still under construction. Scheduled flights to the top of the Pan Am Building (now

MetLife Building The MetLife Building (also 200 Park Avenue and formerly the Pan Am Building) is a skyscraper at Park Avenue and 45th Street, north of Grand Central Terminal, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. Designed in ...

) began in December 1965; they ended in 1968, then resumed for a few months in 1977. In April 1966 23 flights a day flew nonstop to Pan Am's terminal at JFK, scheduled 10 minutes; passengers could check in at the Pan Am Building 40 minutes before their scheduled departure out of JFK. The downtown heliport had 13 flights a day to Newark, 5 nonstops to TWA's terminal at JFK and 12 to LGA, all of which continued to JFK. (Downtown had no weekend flights.) Soon after Pan Am Building flights resumed the March 1977

Official Airline Guide OAG is a global travel data provider with headquarters in the UK. The company was founded in 1929 and operates in the United States, Singapore, Japan, Lithuania and China. It has a large network of flight information data including schedules, ...

(OAG) showed 48 weekday S-61 departures from there: 12 to EWR, 14 to LGA then JFK, and 22 nonstops to JFK. New York Airways employed the first African American airline pilot. Perry H. Young made his historic first flight on February 5, 1957. Young had previously made history as the first African American flight instructor for the United States Army Air Corps.

Destinations

At its peak the airline partnered with 24 international and domestic airlines. At various times it served: *

John F. Kennedy International Airport John F. Kennedy International Airport is a major international airport serving New York City and its metropolitan area. JFK Airport is located on the southwestern shore of Long Island, in Queens, New York City, bordering Jamaica Bay. It is ...

(JFK) *

(LGA) * Newark Airport (EWR) * West 30th St, Manhattan * Pan Am Building roof-top heliport * Wall Street Heliport *

Battery Park City Battery Park City is a mainly residential planned community and neighborhood on the west side of the southern tip of the island of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by the Hudson River on the west, the Hudson River shoreline on the nor ...

Heliport *

Stamford, Connecticut Stamford () is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, outside of New York City. It is the sixth-most populous city in New England. Stamford is also the largest city in the Western Connecticut Planning Region, Connecticut, Weste ...

Heliport *

Teterboro Airport Teterboro Airport is a general aviation relief airport situated in the boroughs of Teterboro, Moonachie, and Hasbrouck Heights in Bergen County, New Jersey.Westchester County Airport Westchester County Airport is a county-owned airport in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County, New York (state), New York, United States, northeast of downtown White Plains, New York, White Plains, with territory in the Town (New Y ...

(HPN) * Downtown Trenton * New Brunswick * Hadley Field * Morristown Municipal Airport In 1969 the Official Airline Guide (OAG) listed some inter-airport flights using

Twin Otters along with the Vertol flights. Fuel prices soared after the

1973 oil crisis In October 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) announced that it was implementing a total oil embargo against countries that had supported Israel at any point during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which began after Eg ...

, damaging profitability. The airline could not recover after the 1977 Pan Am Building accident and the

1979 oil crisis A drop in oil production in the wake of the Iranian revolution led to an energy crisis in 1979. Although the global oil supply only decreased by approximately four percent, the oil markets' reaction raised the price of crude oil drastically ...

, and New York Airways filed for bankruptcy on May 18, 1979. The number of passengers boarded, in thousands, scheduled flights only were 68 in 1957, 144 in 1960, 537 in 1967, 268 in 1970.

Fleet

All surviving New York Airways Boeing Vertol 107s are now operated by Columbia Helicopters, based in Aurora, Oregon: *N6672D *N6674D *N6675D *N6676D *N6682D *N107PA (Operated under contract to Pan Am) *N108PA (Operated under contract to Pan Am) N6674D is the highest flying time helicopter in the world, with more than 82,000 flight hours since its construction in 1962. N6682D is in the 1968 film '' Coogan's Bluff'', starring

Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western (genre), Western TV series ''Rawhide (TV series), Rawhide'', Eastwood rose to international fame with his role as the "Ma ...

, taking off atop the Pan Am Building. N108PA is the helicopter arriving with Eastwood. N6676D is shown taking off from the Downtown Manhattan/Wall St. Heliport in the last of the Secret Agent 077 trilogy of films, 1966's Special Mission Lady Chaplin. It appears in the 1967 spy thriller

Matchless Matchless is one of the oldest marques of British motorcycles, manufactured in Plumstead, London, between 1899 and 1966. A wide range of models were produced under the Matchless name, ranging from small two-strokes to 750 cc Four-stroke cy ...

, arriving and taking off from the Pan Am Building.

Accidents

On October 14, 1963, New York Airways Flight 600, a Boeing Vertol 107, registration N6673D, crashed shortly after takeoff from Idlewild Airport (now JFK) en route to Newark via Wall Street. All three passengers and all three crew members died. The accident was caused by mechanical failure due to contaminated lubricants. On July 15, 1969, de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 200 N558MA was 12 minutes behind schedule on a flight from New York to Newark, so the pilot decided to take off from a runway intersection. During initial climb the plane was caught in the wake

vortex In fluid dynamics, a vortex (: vortices or vortexes) is a region in a fluid in which the flow revolves around an axis line, which may be straight or curved. Vortices form in stirred fluids, and may be observed in smoke rings, whirlpools in th ...

of a departing jet and crashed, killing 3 (2 crew and 1 passenger) of the 14 occupants. On May 16, 1977, the landing gear failed on a Sikorsky S-61L (N619PA) while it was taking on passengers on the roof of the Pan Am Building. The aircraft fell onto its side. Its spinning principal rotor blades killed four passengers waiting to board (including movie director Michael Findlay) and injured a fifth. Parts of a broken blade fell into the streets below, killing one pedestrian and injuring another. The accident precipitated the permanent closure of the heliport. The Cinema Museum in London holds film of this helicopter from summer 1963. On April 18, 1979, a Sikorsky S-61L (N618PA), while on departure climbout from Newark International Airport, experienced a fracture of one of the tail rotor blades, resulting in severe vibrations and an immediate return and descent to the airport. At about 150 feet altitude, the entire tail rotor gearbox was torn from the aircraft, resulting in an immediate and radical center of gravity change to the aircraft. This caused a severe nose down attitude and uncontrolled contact with the ground. Compounding the accident was the failure of both hydraulic systems due to the loss of the tail rotor gear box, which rendered the aircraft virtually uncontrollable. There were three fatalities and thirteen serious injuries. The airline ceased flying that day and never resumed operations, filing for bankruptcy the following month.

References

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