Caped Crusader: After His Search-And-Rescue Instructor Died On A Mountain, Caleb Carr, 25, Cofounded A Company To Help Stabilize Helicopter Baskets

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A search-and-rescue instructor died on a mountain after a helicopter couldn’t land. Now a company cofounded by 1 of his trainees—who is a 2020 ForbesUnder30 listmaker—is using technology to stabilize these flights

t 15, Caleb Carr was training as a volunteer search-and-rescuer on Larch Mountain in northern Oregon when his instructor collapsed of an apparent heart attack. A Blackhawk helicopter arrived to transport the stricken man to the hospital, but strong winds swung the rescue basket too wildly to get through the dense tree cover to do an airlift. The instructor died on the mountain. Carr never forgot.

But when Carr started college, he spoke with physics professor Randall Tagg about how he’d watched his friend die on the mountain, and Tagg said, essentially, why don’t you fix it? Carr was studying biophysics with plans to go to medical school, and he was just 18, but he was a people person and soon assembled a team of students to learn about sensor systems and motors and come up with a solution. “He just took off like crazy,” Tagg says.

Within months, Carr had reorganized the company to make Sikora Vita’s cofounder and chief technology officer. They own equal stakes in the business. “I could tell by the interview I had that they didn’t know what they were looking for,” Sikora says. “They were just looking for anyone who could help them.”

Sikora knew from his work with the military previously that whatever solution they came up with would have to be a clip-on or attachment so it wouldn’t get bogged down in the multiyear bureaucracy of attempting to reengineer a Blackhawk. He also believed that the rail system would never work because of how much bigger and heavier it would make the helicopter—leaving it prone to instability and potential crashes.

 

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BKodyRobinson that guy made me double take, not gonna lie!

That S awsome

They mustn’t be distracted by media attention ..

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