BROOMFIELD — Trevor Fennig typed the words “paraplegic helicopter pilot” into an Internet-search engine, waited a few seconds and caught the first glimpse of what his new life could be.
Fennig saw a YouTube video of Stewart McQuillan, a partially paralyzed British veteran, flying a helicopter. Fennig, who had flown fixed-wing aircraft since he was a little kid, lost the use of his legs in 2009, just before he turned 18. While he was target shooting in the Indiana woods, his gun slipped from its holster and discharged. The bullet struck his spine.
McQuillan, it turned out, is the designer of a prosthetic device called the HeliLeg, which allows paraplegics to manually operate the leg controls of rotorcraft. It’s a device custom-fitted to each pilot and portable for use in any number of craft.
At first, Fennig couldn’t find out much about McQuillan, an electrical engineer and Royal Air Force pilot before he broke his spine in a service-related accident in 1988.
But Fennig didn’t give up. From his home in Bryant, Ind., he tracked down McQuillan, who was
trying out semi-retirement, devoting himself to fishing and serving as an aerospace instructor at the Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs.
“I was very, very comfortable before I was dragged out,” McQuillan said. “But at the end of the day, there is a need. There are a lot of guys who are busted up who want to get back to normal life.”
Fennig and McQuillan went looking for a flight school where Fennig could learn to fly with the HeliLeg, and they came across
.
Now, they’re all in it together. With TYJ owners Gina and Mike Fyola, they founded . And they intend for Fennig to be the first of many disabled pilots — particularly U.S. veterans — trained by the foundation to fly again.
There is a shortage of helicopter pilots in the U.S., Gina Fyola said, and there are hundreds of disabled pilots who could serve again.
Mike Fyola, a combat veteran who has 10 years’ experience with law enforcement in Denver and Jefferson counties, is especially committed to helping veterans. Fennig began piloting a Robinson R-44 helicopter using the HeliLeg just a few days into his training.
“Trevor is an amazing pilot,” Gina Fyola said. “We’re lucky the first person in the program is picking it up so quickly. These guys have to look even better on paper than their counterparts with legs.”
Fennig already has a job lined up with Copters for a Cause, a Denver nonprofit that offers rides and tours to help raise money for various charities.
other Return Flight pilots as they complete training, Fyola said.
However, the four-week program is costly: about $60,000 if the trainee is already a helicopter pilot. Each Federal Aviation Administration-approved, pneumatically operated HeliLeg accounts for $30,000 of the total.
The once-reluctant McQuillan, 51, is now all in.
McQuillan developed the HeliLeg system in the U.K. and, in 2001, brought it to the U.S., where some pilots have been outfitted and trained. He also has designed a wheelchair all-terrain vehicle, or WATV.
Now, the bigger dream of Return Flight is that it will become a center for the design and manufacture of several products for the disabled community.
Veterans other than pilots, as well as vets without disabilities, could also receive training and jobs in Return Flight workshops.
“A lot of the guys coming back from war know what it’s like lying in a hospital bed wondering what they’re going to do,” McQuillan said. “These guys will be trained and put into jobs — engineers, mechanics, sheet-metal workers.”
McQuillan, whose legs were crushed while he was checking a problem with an RAF Tornado GR1 combat aircraft during a scramble, was told by the military and doctors he would never fly again.
“I didn’t believe it,” he said. “Almost everybody we’ll use has been thrown on the scrap heap. They won’t stay there.”
