Meet the Pilots

John Ryan



John is Heliops' Chief Pilot.
John is fun to fly with and has a great sense of humor (of course, he’s Irish) but make no mistake, he is full on when it comes to passenger safety and service.
John joined Heliops in 2006 and also operates his own helicopter business, Ryan Rotors, focusing on Agriculture and lift work in and around the Plymouth area.
Using a lift helicopter with a cargo net, John’s company does the best golf ball drops you will ever see. They drop numbered balls for fund raising events.
John is also a Flight Instructor and only does advanced pilot training/recertification and transition training for pilots wanting to learn to fly a different helicopter.
John started flying helicopters at 19 years old and now, over 30 years later, he has more years of experience flying helicopters in and around Southern New England than any other helicopter pilot in the area.
John is married with 3 great kids and lives in Scituate, MA.
Wes Verkaart


Wes has been a Helicopter Pilot since 2001 and joined Heliops in 2004. Wes has the additional responsibilities of making sure all the cleaning and maintenance gets done and also wears the regulatory hat insuring FAA compliance. He spent 30 years in the Medical Product Design world dealing with the FDA so he swapped one Regulatory hat for another.
Wes started flying airplanes in the 1980’s but took a side trip into the corporate world to “gain some altitude” before returning to flying (helicopters) in 2001. After his transition to helicopters Wes has never looked back. (He does admit he’s been back in an airplane a few times since though.)
“I promised myself back then that I would fly helicopters.” he said, and he has made good on that promise ever since.
Off duty, Wes enjoys playing acoustic music with friends (he plays banjo, guitar and fiddle) and he likes tinkering with some of the old cars & motorcycles he has collected over the years. Wes and his wife, Barbara, live in Plymouth, MA.

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