Enstrom Helicopter Corporation Celebrating 60 Years

Here in the border town of Menominee Michigan lays Enstrom Helicopter Corporation, a company that has been here since the very beginning. Celebrating its 60th year, the corporation was founded in 1959 by a mining engineer, Rudolph Enstrom. With some help by a local businessman and aeronautical engineers from the east coast, the company was off and running. A few experimental helicopters were tested and by 1965, their first product was born, a piston powered helicopter, the F-28. The company continued to grow going from a small one room building to now 150,000 square foot facility. “The fact that Enstrom is still here in Menominee Michigan after 60 year is really something unique.” Said Dennis Martin. The company currently builds three models of helicopters, two of them have piston engines, and the third has a turbofan engine, just one an engine you see on an airplane. Over 1,300 aircraft have been built with a wild range of customers from civilian to military and policing. One of those customers happens to be in our neighboring state. “One of our customers is the Minnesota DNR; they use one of our aircraft for game patrols and wildlife surveys, port securities in the port of Duluth.” Said Dennis Martin. A helicopter flies by using a main rotor and a tail rotor. The main rotor provides most of the lift and the tail rotor helps guide the nose of the aircraft. As the pilot moves the flight controls, the rotors angle pitches as well. With it spinning at 350 rpm, it is a lot of moving parts to make sure a helicopter works properly. “When we move the cycling stick to control the helicopter, it actually changes the pitch of the blades and it will change the pitch of the blades independently and that will tilt the whole rotor system left or right which of course causes the helicopter to go left or right or forward and back.”Said Dennis Martin. Over 90% of the aircraft is built in the factory; this is rather unique for an aerospace company. Because of this, they are able to keep the prices lower and that draws in customers from around the world. Curious how much one of these cost? “The helicopter costs about 1.5 million dollars which sounds like a lot of money, but in the helicopter world it’s not, so that offers them a low-cost platform.” Said Dennis Martin. So perhaps the next helicopter you get inside of will be one that was built in a hometown of ours.