Hillberg Helicopters was an American
aircraft manufacturer
An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a high technology indust ...
based in
Fountain Valley, California
Fountain Valley is a suburban city in Orange County, California. The population was 57,047 at the 2020 census.
History
The area encompassing Fountain Valley was originally inhabited by the Tongva people. European settlement of the area b ...
and founded by Donald Gene Hillberg. The company specialized in the design and manufacture of
helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
s in the form of kits for
amateur construction.
[Purdy, Don: ''AeroCrafter - Homebuilt Aircraft Sourcebook, Fifth Edition'', page 324-325 and 352. BAI Communications, 15 July 1998. ]
The company offered a turbine conversion kit for the
Rotorway Exec, using a
Solar T62
The Solar T62 Titan is an American gas turbine engine used mainly as a helicopter auxiliary power unit (APU), ground power generator, turboprop engine or helicopter turboshaft engine. A free power turbine version was developed as the Solar T66. ...
auxiliary power unit
An auxiliary power unit (APU) is a device on a vehicle that provides energy for functions other than propulsion. They are commonly found on large aircraft and naval ships as well as some large land vehicles. Aircraft APUs generally produce 115& ...
engine to create the
Hillberg Turbine Exec. The
Hillberg EH1-01 RotorMouse was a single-seat helicopter with stub-wings. At least one example of each design was flown.
A
Hillberg EH1-02 TandemMouse, two-seats-in-
tandem
Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction.
The original use of the term in English was in ''tandem harness'', which is used for two ...
version of the RotorMouse design was proposed and construction of a prototype commenced.
Aircraft
References
{{Hillberg Helicopters aircraft
Helicopters
Homebuilt aircraft
Defunct aircraft manufacturers of the United States
Defunct manufacturing companies based in Greater Los Angeles
Fountain Valley, California