Ernie Stephens, editor-at-large, spent 27 years with a major county police department, retiring as the chief pilot of its aviation section. He began his flying career in the late 1980s when he earned his rotorcraft license and incorporated a small aviation company as a sideline to his law enforcement career. Ernie holds a naste in aeronautical science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where he is also an assistant professor and former director of academics at one of the school’s satellite campuses. He has been writing for R&WI since 2003 and has performed evaluation flights in some of the latest, most technologically advanced rotorcraft in the world.