Stanley Hiller Jr., who designed and built helicopters, turned around troubled companies, and founded a popular aviation museum, died April 20 at his Atherton home from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. He was 81.
Growing up in Berkeley, Mr. Hiller learned to fly before he was 10 and made the first successful helicopter flight in the Western United States in 1944 — in the Berkeley football stadium.
Hiller Aircraft Corp. produced some 3,000 helicopters from 1946 to 1964 along Willow Road in Menlo Park, on the approach to the Dumbarton Bridge. Helicopters designed and built there ranged from massive military machines to flying platforms, and a personal helicopter kit that could be parachuted behind enemy lines and assembled by hand in nine minutes.
After selling the company in 1964, Mr. Hiller turned his attention to turning around troubled companies. In 1998, he opened the Hiller Aviation Museum at the San Carlos Airport. The museum tracks aviation developments in Northern California from 1869 into the far future.
In 2002, Mr. Hiller received the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum Trophy for Lifetime Achievement.
Mr. Hiller is survived by his wife, Carolyn Balsdon Hiller; sons Jeffrey and Stephen Hiller of Atherton; seven grandchildren; and a sister, Patricia Hiller Chadwick of London.
A memorial service will be held Friday, May 5, at 1 p.m. at the Hiller Aviation Museum, 601 Skyway Road, San Carlos.
The Almanac will publish a more compete story of Stanley Hiller Jr. next week.
