Hey guys
(rant rant, video in the end)
I just watched the video of Mr Denny soloing the helicopter for the first time, great job!
I was also suprised to see him mention the schools owner, Jan Sundberg (sounds very Swedish btw) , also being a ACP customer.
I happened to grow up in a aviation-family, with my grandfather flying "undercover" ambulance plane during the nights into occupied Norway during 2nd World War, helping refugees & resistance movements (Sweden was officially neutral, but that didn't stop him)... He got his nickname "Ghostpilot", since the residents along his flightpath denied ever having seen or heard about a plane which was making unauthorized night-flights into German-occupied airspace... (he was called "Spökis" in Swedish), & also why we have ghost-logos as nose-art on every helicopter we operate.
After the war he started our civil aviation company, both fixed wing & copters. My mom & dad took over & around the time I popped into the world they operated seaplanes bushflying-style fishing-charter in the mountains of northern Sweden. I was fortunate enough to be able to skip preschool during days my father had a seat free, so I pretty much grew up flying dual-stick in float-planes as cubs, cessnas, and the Norduyn Norseman (oh how I miss the sound of the 9piston radial engine). During the 90s, the company sold the seaplanes & started to operate helicopter only, starting out with the same type of helicopter Bob Denny soloed in the video (but ours had two tanks)
When I got old enough, I started to collect hours "officially" , and since my father (currently +30.000hrs plane/heli combined) was an instructor during those days, we made short work of the training & I picked up my commercial licence at the age of 21, starting to work full time. Now, 10 years later, I'm past 5.000hrs, & my company operates 7 helicopters:
1 AS350 B2
3 EC120B
3 R-44 RII
& since I need a good nights sleep before work & clear skies are few & weeks apart, ACP + Scheduler is definately the way to go for me, running my RoR-obsy 100% automated the nights I can't babysit my scope.
Here's a video of me combining work & hobby for the first (& probably last) time, moving a public observatory-dome from a mountain top down to its new location down in the valley. I used a GoProHD helmet-camera..:
Click link to watch video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8pSus-NNr8&hd=1
One of my closest astro-buddies also happens to be a helicopter-pilot, which made me think.... Are there any more aviators here?
Best Regards
Jonas Grinde