"[2] HAT started a flying school for helicopter pilots and mechanics in the autumn of 1946 at Camden Central, with Frank Cashman at its head.

HAT experimented with all kinds of services, including charter and pleasure flights, package delivery and mail flights, pipeline and powerline surveying, aerial photography, police assistance, cattle herding, and a particularly successful oil exploration survey which was carried out for Standard Oil with a float-equipped Bell 47B over marshlands in Louisiana.

HAT demonstrated a rescue operation at Ocean City, New Jersey, with a lifeguard dropped near a swimmer, and the pair were then slowly towed with a line from the helicopter back to the beach.

In the spring of 1947, HAT acquired, through Lou Leavitt, the XR-1A twin-rotor helicopter from the Platt-LePage Aircraft Company, and repair work started to bring it to airworthiness after an earlier crash.

[3] The Bell and Platt-LePage helicopters were painted overall red, and the Sikorskys wore the manufacturer's house colours of blue and silver.

[B] Around that time it was also becoming apparent that despite Edgar's conviction that commercial helicopter operations were successful and had a promising future, they were also extremely expensive to run.

Cash flow was turning negative, and on 21 October 1947 HAT filed for bankruptcy and Bell and Sikorsky repossessed their machines.