If these had been real life crashes, HeliProz Inc. sales manager Kurt Kreiger would have destroyed thousands of dollars’ worth of aircraft in less than 10 minutes while demonstrating how to fly remote-control helicopters.

But this was a simulator, and the gleeful Kreiger only giggled every time his chopper kissed the earth.

“I am really good at crashing these things,” he said. “Watch this.”

During the past five years, the world of remote-control helicopters has mushroomed from a hobby for those with big checkbooks and lots of patience into a more user-friendly game where simulators help novices learn to fly before it costs them.

In just a decade, HeliProz, now a Lockwood company, has become a leader among thousands of competitors, shipping helicopters and thousands of parts around the world. HeliProz and several sister companies operating under the name FlyCo Holding Co., expect to generate revenues of $10 million this year.

On Thursday, the company is celebrating its 10th anniversary and the grand opening of its $2.5 million Lockwood plant.

“Fly hard. We have the parts,” says a banner hanging in the lobby.

In 2006, Chris Nelson, a Billings native who owns Zoot Enterprises and two dozen other companies, purchased HeliProz and fulfilled his lifetime dream.

“I just always wanted to fly and couldn’t afford the real thing, so I started trying to fly remotes 14 years ago,” he said.

Among his many other ventures, Nelson and his brother, Mike Nelson, are renovating the Northern Hotel in downtown Billings.

Nelson now flies his own Robinson R44 chopper from Zoot headquarters in Bozeman to Billings, lands in the hay fields next to HeliProz and plays with any remote-control helicopter he wants to. Sophisticated simulators have boosted sales, he said.

“They are worth their weight in gold, although at HeliProz, we’d rather you crashed often and bought a new one,” Nelson said, laughing.

HeliProz was a dream of another remote-control-addicted man.

In Nov. 19, 1999, Eric Hawkinson of Billings got so frustrated about having to buy his helicopter parts from multiple sources that he opened his own shop at Broadwater Square. Retail sales grew quickly, but after falling terminally ill in March 2006, Hawkinson put his business up for sale.

He put his daughter, Jenn Hawkinson, and his friend Kreiger through a crash course on how to run the company.

“I was actually doing accounting, inventory, shipping, sales, Web ads, regular ads and managing employees,” she said.

Then, in June 2006, Nelson bought the company.

Now Jenn Hawkinson can concentrate on her first love, marketing for the firm.

In the company’s early days, Hawkinson and Kreiger had to handle all the shipping, and a 70-package day about wiped them out. Now the FlyCo companies employ 25 people, and shipping is its own department.

Every day, UPS parks a truck outside and the U.S. Post Office stops by twice a day to handle the company’s annual volume of 26,000 packages. On the day after Thanksgiving, Hawkinson wants to set a record by shipping 400 packages in a single day.

HeliProz needed investment money to grow, which Nelson provided, paying undisclosed sums for two competitors — Ron’s HeliProz South of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Miniature Aircraft USA of Orlando, Fla., a company he moved to Lockwood last month.

Now, with his plan to add wholesale and manufacturing to his Lockwood business, Nelson is hovering for a while.

“I have no more expansion plans right now. We are making a profit. They are doing well,” he said.

Behind a warehouse full of parts sits the manufacturing room, where $1 million worth of computerized machines crank out as many as 2,000 parts a day. A computerized cutter carves airframe parts from carbon fiber.

Sales have fallen off some on the high-end turbo helicopters. A chopper with a real miniature jet engine can set you back $30,000. But some toys are priorities, even during down times.

“They probably aren’t going to go out and buy a jet ski, but they’ll keep their choppers flying,” Kreiger said.

The remotes start as low as $100, and, even if you crash and burn, the most likely parts to fail cost $4, Hawkinson said.

Los Angeles publisher Mike Velez is flying to Billings for Thursday’s open house. He publishes three magazines: RC Heli, RC Car and another on beer.

RC Heli started four years ago and now sells 25,000 copies a month, an indication of the growing popularity of the hobby.

“I would say HeliProz is extremely progressive. They took an established business, and through good marketing and purchases, they pushed it to a whole next level,” Velez said.

Contact Jan Falstad at jfalstad@billingsgazette.com or 657-1306.