“I have always been fascinated by the wonders of flight"the flying machines as well as the daring aviators who flew them. The flying machine I came to know best was the helicopter.”

Steward Ross Graham, Naval/Coast Guard helicopter pilot number two.

Then, as the New Year began, calamity struck.  All helicopter training was terminated unexpectedly and without prior announcement on February 6, 1945.  The school closed with the graduation of its sixth class.  This ended Erickson’s access to helicopters for his experimental work, adapting this machine for search and rescue " his primary goal.  Fixed-wing patrol aircraft were moved back to Coast Guard Air Station Brooklyn to resume routine Coast Guard flight operations.  Most helicopters went into storage.  Bitterly, Erickson noted “because [helicopters] did not fit into the air-sea rescue program as it was then envisioned by those in control of Coast Guard aviation.”[1]

The war’s winding down further impaired the barely-developing helicopter industry.  Most rotary-wing production contracts were canceled.  The Coast Guard’s allocation of HO2S helicopters was cut from 50 aircraft to two.  Erickson’s spirits were further crushed with the knowledge that “any hopes of converting the HO2S for Coast Guard rescue operations went dow the drain.”[2]

Predictably to this point, when Erickson saw an opening, he acted immediately, aggressively, and generally without regard to conventional attitudes.  His belligerent behavior, protecting the helicopter and his programs, also  . . .