In the two years since Kathryn Purwin last appeared in the pages of the Business Journal, she has been busy growing the company that she took over following the death of her husband. Helinet Aviation Services has added new helicopters and even drones to its fleet. It has hired staff to oversee the unmanned aircraft and aerial production for film and television. The moves help solidify Helinet’s standing as the only helicopter company in the Los Angeles area that offers such diversity of services. “You may have a charter company or an air medical company, but we do it all,” Purwin said. The company has 70 employees, including 31 pilots for the 16 helicopters it owns and another three that it manages. It has five divisions: charter flights for corporate and celebrity clients; aerial coverage for television news stations; medical flights; aerial production for film and television; and Advanced Solutions, an integrator of surveillance systems for law enforcement and security clients. Alan Purwin founded Helinet in 1987. He was something of a pioneer in the aviation industry, particularly when it came to the aerial photography for television and film productions in that he did never-before-seen piloting and shooting. Some noted credits include “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “San Andreas,” “Entourage,” the “Hunger Games” franchise and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. The 54-year-old pilot was killed in 2015 when the twin-engine Piper Aerostar he was aboard crashed after flying into bad weather in Medellin, Colombia where he had been working on “American Made,” a film starring Tom Cruise. The aerial photography work is the biggest growth area for Helinet. That is because following Purwin’s death, the work had dwindled down to nothing because he was the one that did it, Kathryn Purwin said, adding there was no desire on her part at that time to keep the production division going. “It was a slow evolution but now we are there, and it is big,” she said. Kevin LaRosa, an aerial coordinator and stunt pilot, was brought on last year as vice president of aerial film production. In addition, the company partnered with Brown and Firehawk Helicopters to bring a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, marketed as MovieHawk, to Los Angeles for production. It is the first Black Hawk helicopter to be made available for film and television work in the market. Helinet, too, in the past two years has added 20 drones to its lineup. In April, Chad Daring was hired to manage the small unmanned aircraft systems business. Last month, Helinet had a demonstration day to show off its drones and how they can be used for more than just film and television work. “It is moving out of just production into the news world and into law enforcement world as well,” Purwin said. Corporate philanthropy has been a big part of Helinet and Alan Purwin’s legacy. Starting in 1999, the company donated the use of two helicopters by Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and made crew members available round-the-clock to fly them. “It’s the mission we are most proud of,” Purwin said. Rocket Firing Aerojet Rocketdyne on Sept. 25 test-fired its RS-25 rocket engine that will be used on the Space Launch System, the new heavy-lift rocket NASA has under development to power future manned missions to the moon and possibly to Mars. The engine ran for 500 seconds during the test at NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Aerojet Rocketdyne makes the RS-25 engine at its Chatsworth campus. It is a modified version of the engines used on the space shuttle. The test also evaluated the main combustion chamber made with a manufacturing process known as hot-isostatic press bonding, and a 3D printed component called a pogo accumulator assembly, a piece of hardware that acts as a shock absorber to dampen oscillations caused by propellants as they flow between the vehicle and the engine, according to the company. Both the combustion chamber and accumulator assembly were made at the San Fernando Valley plant. Aerojet Rocketdyne, in El Segundo, provided 16 of the engines to NASA for testing, enough for the first four missions using the Space Launch System rocket. Hot testing of the engines began in 2015. The Chatsworth facility is ramping up to manufacture more of the engines, which fit on the bottom of the core stage of the rocket. The company will use the latest in manufacturing methods, including 3D printing, in making the engines. The first test flight of the rocket is scheduled to take place as early as next year. The first manned mission is scheduled for several years after that. Staff Reporter Mark R. Madler can be reached at (818) 316-3126 or [email protected].