In the summer of 1950, Hamilton, Ontario resident Harry B. Picken completed construction of a very conventional homebuilt helicopter. Equipped with a tail rotor like most successful helicopters back then and still today, the HP 100 or HP 400 Helicon did not go beyond the prototype stage. In 1951 Picken founded an aircraft maintenance and repair company in Ste. Catherine, Ontario, Genaire Company Limited. In the summer of 1954, he submitted the idea of mechanism to enable a helicopter to land on a ship even in bad weather to Canada's Department of Defence Production . A federal agency, the Defense Research Board, deemed the concept too complex but believed the idea itself was promising.
This work gave birth to the Helicopter Hauldown and Rapid Securing Device (HHRSD), developed by Fairey Aviation Company of Canada of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, a subsidiary of the British firm Fairey. The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) enthusiastically collaborated on the project. The sea trials of a prototype began in November 1963. The problems and delays were numerous, which was quite understandable given the degree of innovation of the concept. That said, Fairey Canada, a company name adopted in 1964, received a first order towards the end of the year. Mounted on RCN escort destroyers and helicopter carrying destroyers, these devices, known as the "Beartrap," were used in conjunction with the Sikorsky CHSS / CH-124 Sea King helicopters. They allowed the use in all weather conditions of one or two helicopters from relatively small warships, thereby greatly changing, dare one say almost revolutionizing, anti-submarine warfare in mid ocean.
Around 1967, when it was faced with serious financial problems, Fairey decided to end its activities in Canada. Dominion Aluminum Fabricating of Mississauga, Ontario, purchased the production rights for the HHRSD from the federal government in 1969. The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force became the first foreign customer of the "Beartrap" in 1973. The signing of a first contract by the United States Navy in 1981 was an important step in the history of Recovery Assist, Securing and Traversing (RAST), a new official designation of the “Beartrap” adopted circa 1976-78.
Dominion Aluminum Fabricating became DAF Indal, a subsidiary of the Canadian company Indal Canada, around 1977. Indal Technologies, a name adopted around 1985, completed the prototype of a new device, the Aircraft Ship Integrated Secure and Traverse (ASIST), in 1986.
In 1987, the company apparently began discussions with the Italian company Caproni Vizzola Costruzioni Aeronautiche, a subsidiary of a major company , Agusta, to develop a version of ASIST compatible with anti-submarine helicopters manufactured by the latter. This most interesting project seemingly went nowhere.
With support from the Defence Industry Productivity Program and Technology Partnerships Canada, Indal Technologies slowly became a world leader in helicopter landing systems. Towards the end of the 2000s, RAST and ASIST together accounted for three quarters of the systems installed worldwide. The navies of at least ten countries in America (Canada, Chile and the United States), Asia (China (Taiwan), Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Turkey), Europe (Italy and Spain) ) and Oceania (Australia) had ordered more than two hundred of these Canadian systems.
It should be noted that Curtiss-Wright acquired Indal Technologies in 2005. The latter still existed as of 2021. The HHRSD and its successors, the RAST and ASIST, are among the most important, if not the most important Canadian innovations in naval combat of the 20th century.
