Talking With the Owner of the 'Batman '66' Batcopter (No, Not Bruce Wayne) About its Trip to New Jersey This Weekend
Ever wanted to take a ride in the Batcopter, Batman's iconic flying machine from Batman, the hit [...]
Ever wanted to take a ride in the Batcopter, Batman's iconic flying machine from Batman, the hit 1966 TV series?
Well, you can literally do that -- in the actual Batcopter that appeared onscreen with Adam West and Burt Ward -- at the State Fair Meadowlands in New Jersey from now until Sunday.
The Batcopter is owned by Eugene Nock, who not only restored this quintessential piece of pop culture history to complete airworthy condition, but alternates between using it as an attraction -- and as just another helicopter, since the Batcopter is actually built on the foundation of one of the most reliable helicopters in aviation history.
"It is a real helicopter, and it was right from the day it was built. It has certain criteria that has to be met in order for it to be airworthy. That's what we call it. It's got an airworthiness certificate," assured Nock. "It has a annual inspection. Then there's a very comprehensive book, maintenance manual from Bell Helicopter. They're a Fortune 100 company in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and they still build helicopters. And they still have brand new parts for that machine."
That model of helicopter is, in fact, so well-regarded that Nock did not find this looking for Bat-memorabilia but wanted this particular sort of helicopter and sort of lucked into finding the most famous one ever built.
"Professionally, I am an aviator, 40 years," Nock said. "I'm an airline transport pilot and I fly a collection of different jets, and multiengineer planes. Our own personal aircraft is a 10-place, twin engine airplane. And then I'm also a commercial helicopter and I've been doing that for a number of years. We have a tour business that's very successful, and back in '97 we were looking for an additional machine, because we had helicopter tours in Wildwood, North Wildwood and also in Atlantic City. We already flew so many different machines we were looking for another wide body. And, it just so happens that the Batcopter, and this is a great thing, is the best wide body model that they ever built. That particular version has the longest main rotor blades, the biggest transmission, the very large clutch, the most stout landing gear, and also what we call the wide body, which is that bubble, but it's wider than the rest.
So, it just happened to be the machine, which just worked out just great because, next thing I know, I'm buying the helicopter from California, and it turns out that the registration, serial number, the historical data, the actual aircraft in front of us, is the original Batcopter."
As you might expect from such a find, though, Nock went right into refurbishing it to a screen-accurate readiness and using it to bolster his business in creative new ways.
"Because it is for hire, I have gotten quite a few what become normal calls, for weddings, birthdays," Nock said. "Not too long ago, a customer, who has now become a friend, was having a wedding. A man in his late '50s with his beautiful wife, a Batman fan, very well-to-do, he lives in a gorgeous mansion home, called me and said that he wanted the Batmobile, the Batcopter, the Batcycle, at his wedding. And he literally replicated Wayne Manor. He found a mansion in Long Island, very nice, and had a Batman wedding. So, yes, the whole affair, gorgeous, black tie as you would imagine Bruce Wayne would have, was accomplished, by a gentleman named Rosario Cassata. This guy, he was just fantastic. I just loved what he did."
The helicopter also had another recent brush with show business -- albeit in a way that's just as circuitous as its route to Nock.
"The Batcopter's saying this for being on the camera side, or video side, because it's the Batcopter so you're gonna look at it, but don't forget it's also one of the earlier platforms for cameras," Nock explained. "So, it flies, it knows movies and film, so it has the original mount still in there, which was gyro mount talk for stable camera back in the old days. That's how it all started, including that scene from The Sound of Music. You remember when Julie Andrews is singing on the mountain? That was done with a Bell Helicopter, with a gyro mount."
It was in this capacity that, recently, Nock was hired to help work on a commercial. A camera crew from Osaka came to Florida to film a commercial, and after four days of using the Batcopter as a camera copter, they finally asked Nock why he had it decked out like Batman's. He explained that it was, in fact, Batman's.
"And they did a whole Japanese TV show just on Americans, and their toys," Nock laughed. "
It only proves that Batman has a worldwide appeal, and sometimes people just can't fathom it. They see it, and in this case, it's the TV people that are around the helicopter four days. It's carrying the camera around. It's doing everything it's supposed to do, and then they were marveling that it's actually the Batcopter."
You can see, and ride, the Batcopter all this weekend at the New Jersey State Fair at the Meadowlands.
