Charles "Chuck" Aaron is one of a handful of pilots licensed by the FAA to perform aerobatics in a helicopter in the United States, and one of only four such pilots in the world. In 1980, Aaron worked on the air rescue program for NASA's Space Shuttle, and he founded his own company, FX Helicopters in Westlake Village, California in 1997. Aaron announced his retirement from the airshow circuit in 2015 and made his last performance at the 2015 Red Bull Air Race World Championship in Las Vegas. Aaron is also an experienced test pilot, having test-flown a TADS/PNVSMissile Guidance System for the Boeing AH-64 Apache; and an infrared vision system as the first helicopter pilot to deliberately fly into known brownout conditions to test the MAX VIZ IR camera. He is also an FAA certificated Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic, and has assembled many helicopters, including TAH-1F Cobras from surplus parts. Aaron performed aerobatic maneuvers—loop, roll, vertical climb, Split S, Cuban Eight, Immelman, and "Chuckcevak" —at air shows and other demonstrations in an MBB Bo 105, with proprietary modifications invented by Aaron, that allow it to perform maneuvers previously impossible for helicopters. This was featured in the opening sequence of the James Bond filmSpectre. He once served as Chief Pilot and Director of A&P Maintenance for the Red Bull N.A. One of Aaron's TAH-1F Cobras is flown on the European air show circuit, by . It was heavily damaged/destroyed by the R.B. European pilot in an accident in May 2017. In 2019, Aaron opened a helicopter aerobatics flight school based at Concord Regional Airport.
Awards
1978 Received the "Sikorsky Rescue" Award for Saving a Life
2006 Built First Ever FAA Certified Aerobatic Helicopter and Received the First Ever Air Worthiness Certificate from the FAA.
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**** CORRECT INFORMATION *****''' Rich Lee was the first Aerobatic Helicopter Pilot to be certified by the FAA Nearly 20 years before Chuck. Rich Lee was literally the test case for the FAA to issue a Statement of Aerobatic Competency for a helicopter. Additionally, Chuck was taught Aerobatics by Rainer Wilke in 2005. Rainer had been doing helicopter aerobatics since the 1970's. Joe Allen, Thomas Ashe, Gerald Keyser, Brad Donovan and nearly 20 others had a Statement of Aerobatic Competency long before Mr. Aaron.
