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After N417A ended its career with New York Airways in 1958 it went on to work with Petroleum Helicopters, Inc. (PHI) as part of their first S-55 fleet. Petroleum Helicopters is one of the helicopter industry leaders. They offered services like logging, spraying, surveying, patrol and transport. They used their S-55's to create the offshore helicopter business that so many people depend on today. The S-55 was their first helicopter that could carry large groups and their gear to oil rigs for crew changes, before that they had to use the much smaller Bell 47. This helicopter simplified things for the industry and cut costs, too. PHI is the world's first operator of the brand new Sikorsky S-92. They have operated every commercial Sikorsky since the S-55.
 
When it was done working with PHI it was sold back to Sikorsky and then sold to Aero Services Corporation of Philadelphia. They exported it to Canada and that is how the history and the N417A tail number were lost. It picked up a new tail number of CF-MYZ. In Canada it did survey type work with a few companies. One of the companies was Autair. Around that same time they became North America's first turbine operator. It was up in Canada for around twenty years.
In 1981 it came back to the states and was purchased by a company named CW Ag-Air of Hanson, Massachusetts and was given a new number of N2650M. A couple years later it was sold to Orlando Helicopters. In 1987 it was sold to Relair; they used it for advertising. They had a 40 ft. lite-brite blimp-like sign on it and would cruise up and down the beach in Florida. In 1992 Relair was having Vertical Aviation build them a S-55T and wanted to keep the same N-number, so when their S-55T was finished they traded it into Vertical Aviation and kept the N-number N2650M for their new machine. Vertical Aviation then applied for the N-number that is on it today, N111VA ("VA" for Vertical Aviation). Vertical did a complete overhaul on the helicopter. All the parts were zeroed out besides a few hours on a few components.
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Igor Sikorsky would be very proud of the knowledge and time his son, Sergei Sikorsky, gives to aviation. Mr. Sikorsky was kind enough to sign N111VA and even drew an S-55!
N111VA - 3 years in a row in the world's best selling helicopter calendar 2003-2005.
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