NECESSITY — THE MOTHER OF INVENTION
Columbia Helicopters’ inception came from the vision of Wes Lematta, while sitting in a foxhole in the Philippines during WWII watching fighter pilots fly overhead. Lematta knew those pilots were headed back to a hot shower and hot food, and thought,
Wow...they really got this figured out! Following the war, he drove a truck and worked as a longshoreman until he heard there was a need for helicopter pilots. Using his GI Bill educational benefits, he learned to fly from Dean Johnson in McMinnville, Oregon. Lematta then started Columbia Helicopters in 1957 with one helicopter and a plan to promote the versatility of helicopters.
“And he did just that,” states Steve Bandy, senior vice president of operations at Columbia Helicopters. “While flying personnel to a dredge off the coast of Oregon, Lematta spotted another dredge that was sinking. The damaged dredge had been struck by a freighter at the mouth of Coos Bay: people on it needed to be rescued. Lematta single-handedly saved 15 crew members’ lives that day by hovering close to the sinking ship, allowing crew members to grab onto the skids, and returning them safely to shore”. This incident changed Lematta’s vision of what helicopters were capable of doing.
Earlier on, Lematta was an innovator who was not afraid to test ideas that would not only improve operational efficiencies, but also permeate the company’s culture for generations. For example, during an external-load
operation in 1959, while flying a Hiller 12B with dual controls,
Lematta felt he could do a better job if he were able to see what he was doing. He recognized that he could complete the project more efficiently and safely if he looked down at the load instead of relying on radio commands from the ground. He moved from the center seat to the left seat and stuck his head out of the helicopter to establish direct visual contact with the load.
Combine this head-out-the-door technique with the use of bubble windows on both the pilot and copilot’s side, and the Direct Visual Operational Control (DVOC) method of flying loads was born. Bubble windows facilitate quicker pickup, and provide a full view of the drop area to ensure obstacle clearance and enhance safe load delivery. This was the first use of DVOC, which is used throughout the heavy-lift industry to this day.
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