Stephen M. Hickock

AGUSTA COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD: Stephen M. Hickock; President, Hickock & Associates, Inc., Orange Beach, Alabama

AGUSTA COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD: Stephen M. Hickock; President, Hickock & Associates, Inc., Orange Beach, Alabama

Stephen Hickock, a leading pioneer in the development of helicopter instrument approach criteria and procedures, is in Las Vegas this week, having launched his own company, Hickock & Associates, to continue the work of creating and certifying IFR procedures to heliports.

As head of HAI's Flight Operations Committee, Hickock will chair this morning's session, then fly from here to Mountain View, Calif., for a conference at the NASA-Ames Research Center on developments in support of curved, decelerating instrument approaches for helicopters.He is also a member of the HAI EMS and Heliport committees.

Now based in Orange Beach, Ala., on the Gulf Coast west of Mobile, Hickock served 10 years as a U.S. Army helo pilot before transferring to the Coast Guard.He retired as a lieutenant commander.His last active Coast Guard duty billet was at FAA headquarters for a helicopter GPS test program.

Hickock then joined the FAA, where he continued working to develop helicopter/ GPS criteria.While at FAA, he initiated and managed a joint industry-government flight test program using civilian aircraft and pilots along with government assets for collecting and analyzing test flight data.In the process, he became one of the first to fly U.S. helicopter GPS approaches.

After retiring from the FAA, Hickock became a founding member and principal manager of Satellite Technology Implementation.It subsequently became the first company authorized by the government to develop and implement helicopter GPS approaches.He has played a key role in the development of more than 95 percent of all the helicopter Rnav/GPS procedures flown in the U.S. today.

Many HAI members will recall Hickock flying demonstration GPS approach procedures from the Las Vegas Convention Center parking lot during a previous Heli-Expo event.

His newly formed company is continuing that work.Its launch customer is CareFlite, a Grand Prairie, Texas EMS provider with a mixed fleet of helicopters.Hickock & Associates will provide a turnkey solution for IFR approaches to 15 hospitals in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.Hickock's work inside and outside government has led to privatization of helicopter instrument approach development and certification.Given the FAA's low priority for developing instrument procedures for helicopters itself, the private effort is likely to be the primary means for helicopter operators to achieve off-airport instrument approach capability.

Hickock identifies four distinct phases in developing and certifying a heliport approach, each of which must be accomplished by someone intimately familiar with and competent in its execution.
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"This phase is where you make the final fit of the ground to the air, and you can do that only with automation," Hickock told HAI Convention News.He explained that with so many data points to be accurately integrated with local factors it also must be done on-site, "not by someone sitting in a cubicle in D.C."

The final phase involves preparing the documentation to submit to the FAA for certifying the approach."We do all the development work, then deliver the flight procedure package-made out exactly the way the FAA requires-so they'll review and approve it just as though they had done it themselves," Hickock said.The voluminous paperwork includes airspace actions, procedure maintenance, electronic databases, approach charting and an aircrew familiarization training syllabus.

He added that a critical first step in the process was FAA adoption of "point-in-space" criteria for instrument approaches to VFR heliports, which he helped to write."We don't have IFR heliports in this country," he noted, explaining that while airports are surveyed for elevations and obstruction heights, heliports are not.Thus the GPS-based point-in-space concept is an essential part of the almost 200 industry-developed approaches now in effect.

Accomplishing that development has required people like him who "understand that one size does not fit all, and who draw on their unique knowledge of the FAA criteria.Every project, every site, deserved the personal attention only the most experienced and qualified people can provide," according to Hickock.