Family Fun
Flightcell actually is part family, as Wyllie’s wife Carol manages its business accounts. The Wyllie family also includes three adult daughters and grandchildren, none of whom work for the business. But that’s fine with the patriarch. “I have a beautiful family; I’ve been very lucky in that respect,” he says. Wyllie not only enjoys spending time with his wife and their descendants, but he also indulges his passion for biking on South Island’s many mountain trails. (He’s currently recovering from what sounds like a painful spiral leg fracture incurred from enthusiastic pedaling — and crashing.) He also enjoys boating and fishing in New Zealand’s plentiful waters. (Nelson is the nation’s largest fishing port.) Another passion, unsurprisingly, is piloting helicopters. “I still have a commercial license and like to keep my skills up by flying for a couple of operations,” he says.
Wyllie’s active piloting plays a supporting role for Flightcell. “I can talk ‘helicopter speak’ because I’ve been flying for over 30 years and have relationships throughout the industry. That helps me to check on the background of prospective team members when hiring,” he says. “Also, my pilot experience helps me understand what it’s like to be in the cockpit and what pilots need from avionics. Not to disrespect anybody, but a lot of avionics people don’t have that experience; it makes a difference when you actually fly with the equipment. That experience helps us design Flightcell products.”
Business Bogeyman
Designing and bringing cutting-edge communication avionics to market is a continuing challenge for Flightcell. “The speed that technology is changing is one of our biggest challenges,” he says. “Communication technology has evolved massively over the last 10 years in general outside of aviation.” Customers expect the sleek technology they use in their lives away from aviation to find its way into their cockpits. “It’s a real challenge to bring that technology over to aviation at the same speed it’s happening outside of aviation,” says Wyllie. He believes that challenge is not necessarily due to engineering and manufacturing issues,
16 July/Aug 2021
but because of a bogeyman refrain we often hear from business owners and executives: government regulations. “The regulatory system (e.g. FAA and EASA) has not been able to keep up with the speed of technological change,” Wyllie says. “They struggle immensely with updating their regulations to keep up with advancing technology. Regulations are holding technological advances and development back from the industry with overbearing rules. There are considerable problems getting certification from the FAA, for example, because the people there just don’t understand the technology. It’s moving too fast for them.”
Wyllie concedes that current regulations were initially implemented for good reason, but he says they’re becoming outdated at an ever-increasing rate. Still, he sees relief on the horizon. “I think there is starting to be a recognition within the FAA that the rules that applied to large wide-body jet aircraft don’t need to be the same for small rotary-wing aircraft. There has been a one- size-fits-all mentality for a long time, but we are starting to see some recognition that this type of thinking is delaying the rollout of affordable technologies at the lower end. It’s all very well to design a product for a 747 or A320 budget, but you cannot roll that same budget into an A-Star or whatever. People in our industry can design products with just as much capability that can affordably go into an A-Star, but the
regulatory rules are so draconian because they’re based around aircraft holding 300 people and not for aircraft with four to eight people. The FAA is starting to realize the rules should adapt to different types of aircraft, but that realization is happening at such a slow rate, whereas technology is improving at such a high speed, that there’s a big disparity between the two.”
Fantasy Adventure
While burdening regulations remain a constant challenge for Wyllie and the rotorcraft industry, it’s an industry he still likes. “Aviation is a relatively small, well- connected industry, and the helicopter sector is even smaller and more tightly connected. It’s a fun industry to work in because of those tight relationships. We’re still connected and close to customers even if we’re on the other side of the world.” Wyllie likes closeness, but he’s perfectly happy to remain based at his native spot bordered by forests with the purest lakes in the world. He contently says, “Being based in an island town by a mountain lake in the Southern Hemisphere isn’t a problem at all.”
Founding a successful, global-class company with a family feel in the fun rotorcraft industry and getting to live in your idyllic hometown surrounded by natural splendor sounds like a fantasy adventure better than any movie.
Flightcell is a proud sponsor of the Nelson Rescue Helicopter Trust
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