The six-acre Niagara Helicopters heliport (CPQ3) at the corner of Victoria Avenue and the Niagara Parkway in Niagara Falls, Ontario opened in 1964. Pan Air bought the business in 1978. Swiss-born Ruedi Hafen learned to fly there in 1982 and bought the company with to partners from Pan Air in 1985. The tour fleet was upgraded to five new Bell 407s in 1996. In December 2011, Helicopter Transport Services founded by Luc Pilon bought the company and upgraded the fleet to new Airbus H130s. More than 150 pilots learned to fly with Niagara here between 1964 and the mid-1980s when the school closed.

Had a marvellous scenic flight on this over the Falls. Such is the urgency of passenger turnover, it was almost impossible to pause even for a few seconds for a photo on disembarking!

This colourful EC-130 belongs to Niagara Helicopters who fly tours of Niagara Falls. Sadly it was far too windy to do a tour, otherwise I would have done one in a heartbeat!

Niagara Helicopters owner Ruedi Hafen upgraded his heliport in Niagara Falls, ON in the late 1980s and early 1990s to accommodate more bus tour groups visiting from Asia and Europe. A new terminal building, gift shop and restaurant was build, helipads expanded and new tour helicopters added including Bell 412s C-GBHH (1988-1989) and C-GOPP (1990-1993), Bell TwinRanger (1994-1996), five Bell 206L-3s (1993-1996) five early Bell 407s (1996-2015). After Hafen sold the company to Helicopter Transport Services, the 407s were replaced with four Airbus EC130T2s (like C-GTZO pictured here) in 2015.

Has the Niagara Helicopters logo on the cowling.