Stan Rose RPMN: What is your current position?


I am the director of safety outreach at Helicopter Association International (HAI). My wife says that I finally found the perfect job: They pay me to run around the world to talk about aviation and tell war stories.


RPMN: How did you get your start in helicopters?


I was a “high school to flight school” Army helicopter pilot during the Vietnam era. The qualifications were high; so was the mortality rate for combat helicopter pilots. After basic training, flight school, a tour at Fort Knox, and a year in Vietnam, I was discharged from active duty six weeks after my 21st birthday.


RPMN: When and how did you choose to fly helicopters? Or did they choose you?


In 1968, shortly before high school graduation, a group of us were sitting around drinking beer. Around beer number three, my friend said to the group, “We are not going to get into college, are we?”


Since there was still a college deferment from the draft and we were poor kids, we said “No.”


After beer number four, he asked, “If we don’t get into college, we’re going to get drafted, aren’t we?” We said “Yes.”


After beer number five, he said “If we get drafted, we are going to Vietnam, right?”


We said, “yes.” 10


May/June 2017


After beer number six, he asked, “When we go to Vietnam, do you want to walk or do you want to fly?”


I said, “I am too lazy to walk!” and he said, “Good, I made an appointment for us tomorrow with the Army recruiter.


One of us had a medical deferment, another was color blind and he became an Army helicopter tech inspector, and three of us became helicopter pilots.


None of us died in Vietnam. I’d do something entrepreneurial.


RPMN: Where did you get your start flying commercially?


I started an aviation unit for a local police department, went to the Gulf of Mexico


RPMN: What do you enjoy doing on your days off? Fly fishing. It takes you to pretty places,


and flew offshore and finally settled into a long career in air medicine. After starting several air medical programs, I moved to the management side of the house; it was much more exciting! I finished my career as a business development guy and then came to HAI where I put on safety seminars with small operators, pilots, and maintenance techs.


RPMN: If you were not in the helicopter industry, what else would you see yourself doing?


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