Articles for category Human Interest
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Jan
19
2026
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Posted by Admin
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Swelling rivers overflowed their banks and blustering winds fell trees as Hurricane Helene hit the Appalachian Mountains on Friday, 27 September 2024. The Category 4 hurricane approached the coast of Florida earlier in the week, beginning its ravaging course across the United States Southeast. In western North Carolina, the floodwaters and wind quickly destroyed roads and cut off communication for the communities nestled in the mountains.
Within 24 hours, while most of the country was still stunned by the rising fatality numbers, several groups began organizing and deploying their aviation assets. Among these aviation assets was a JAARS Robinson R66 helicopter, which took off from Jungle Aviation and Relay Service (JAARS) Townsend (N52), North Carolina, the morning of the 28th to survey the Avery County Airport (7A8) and its surrounding area.
Avery County Airport has a longstanding history with the JAARS aviation training department. JAARS, a mission aviation organization that covers the “last mile” of missions across global geographical barriers, has trained their pilots in the mountains and airstrips surrounding 7A8 for 50 years. With the JAARS base located south of Charlotte, North Carolina, the local Appalachian Mountains provide specific mountain flying opportunities that reflect similar terrain challenges around the world.
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Tags:
JAARS
Jungle Aviation and Relay Service
Categories:
Company Profiles
Human Interest
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Jan
12
2026
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Posted by Admin
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RPMN: What is your current position?
Rotor-wing chief pilot for Metro Aviation Inc.; it’s the best job in the company! I’m responsible for the hiring, training, currency, and qualification of approximately 600 pilots. I’m also a company instructor/check airman and still teach initial and recurrent flight training.
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Tags:
Chief Pilot Metro Aviation
Meet A Rotor Pro
Wells Cornette
Categories:
Career Development
Human Interest
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Dec
28
2025
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Posted by Admin
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Jeremy Bryck’s humor gets us chuckling before our interview. When told we will be looking for him “to say something outstanding,” he has a deadpan reply. “Well, we have high expectations for today.” The Bowen Island, Canada, native is Canada Dry.
His humble humor saves me from envying—actually jealously hating—his first 22 years spent on that little island off of West Vancouver: He grew up in a picturesque village in a home heated by the warmth of a crackling fire from wood his family gathered each crisp autumn. “We were a hard-working family that enjoyed country life.” That country-boy life involved boating and kayaking amongst whales or either skiing and snowboarding on the mainland. “You could see Cypress Mountain from our house,” he says. “Yeah, did all that stuff; it was gorgeous.”
Still, let me not be too quick to judge. Bryck chose to leave this Pacific Coast paradise upon graduating from the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) with a two-year degree to begin his apprenticeship in aircraft maintenance engineering. He says, “I saw the writing on the wall and realized that if I wanted a career in aviation maintenance I’d have to relocate out of Vancouver.”
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Tags:
Rotor Pro Executive Watch
Categories:
Company Profiles
Human Interest
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Nov
14
2025
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Posted by Admin
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RPMN: What is your current position?
B206 L3 pilot for JAARS in Papua New Guinea (South Pacific/Oceania)
RPMN: Tell me about your first experience with helicopters.
My first experience in helicopters was at Cairns Army Airfield in Daleville, Alabama. I remember it being a hot, humid, and sweaty day. I was an Army flight school student (Warrant Officer) going out for my first flight during the “contact” phase of initial training. My instructor easily picked the orange and white TH-67 Creek (Bell Jet Ranger) up to a hover and nudged through ETL. Next thing I knew he said “you have the flight controls”, and I had them!
I had to work hard to keep the airspeed, altitude and heading anywhere close to the minimum standard on our way to our assigned heliport, but overall I thought, “This isn’t so hard! I think I’ll get the hang of this pretty quickly.”
I was immediately brought back to reality when I attempted my first “execute approach and terminate to a hover” sequence. I could feel the joy radiating out of my IP as we watched the helicopter easily put me and my proud self back in our rightful place. Hovering became a reality a few flight hours later, and it was very sweet indeed!
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Tags:
Greg Raychard JAARS
Meet A Rotor Pro
Categories:
Human Interest
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Nov
13
2025
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Posted by Admin
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Who or what is Centum and why might you care? For over 15 years, Centum, headquartered in Vigo, Spain, has been designing and developing mission airborne systems that assist search and rescue (SAR), intelligence, surveillance and recognition (ISR), maritime surveillance, firefighting, emergency communications, and border-control missions.
So, why should you care? Well, if you’re ever lost in need of help, or are looking for the lost in a SAR mission, you jolly well will care! Let’s say you’re flying a SAR mission. Chances are very good that the person you’re seeking has some sort of cellphone and that’s very good for you—and them. Centum’s Lifeseeker airborne phone location system is based on the premise that the cell phone is the world’s most widespread beacon and it turns cellphones into emergency beacons capable of guiding rescue teams to a lost person’s exact location. The system also allows rescue teams to communicate with the missing person—without the need for that person to do anything—and has proven itself in thousands of successful missions over five continents.
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Tags:
Centum
Helicopter Search and Rescue
Lifeseeker
Categories:
Human Interest
Helicopter Sectors
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Sep
26
2025
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Posted by Admin
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RPMN: What is your current position?
I am the CEO of Aerotoscana, a Chilean helicopter company. I serve as the chief pilot, flying a Robinson R66 primarily for agricultural operations, including frost control and fruit drying, with a special focus on Chile’s cherry growers. I carry out this work alongside my wife, a team of engineers, and strong accounting support, allowing us to perform each operation with the highest level of dedication and professionalism.
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Tags:
Aerotoscana
Felipe Reitz Lobo
Helicopter Cherry Drying Chile
Helicopter tours Patagonia chile
Heliglamping chile
Categories:
Company Profiles
Human Interest
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Jul
29
2025
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Posted by Admin
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RPMN: What is your current position?
I am currently assigned as the commander of the Aircraft Support Branch, Special Enforcement Division, Kentucky State Police (KSP).
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Tags:
Aircraft Support Branch
Captain Timothy Brad Austin
Kentucky State Police Aviation
Categories:
Human Interest
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Jul
14
2025
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Posted by Admin
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Remember back when Apple introduced its iPhone with iOS. The new operating system transformed Apple’s cell phone into a powerful handheld computer. Worthy competitors soon followed with their own smartphone operating systems, such as Android. Now, imagine if an operating system had been introduced that transformed any old cell phone into a smart phone. Suddenly, Blackberry phones and non-smart Nokias would have been upgraded into smartphones! This analogy is basically what Skyryse (pronounced sky-rise) is attempting with their proprietary SkyOS, which they say is “the first universal operating system for flight” that upgrades “any helicopter or airplane” with pilot-assisting autonomous flight capability that far exceeds today’s standard autopilot. Does that sound too lofty—too pie-in-the-sky? (One can almost hear tennis personality John McEnroe exclaiming in a commercial, “Choose any aircraft?? You cannot be serious!!”) Well, welcome to the serious challenge that faces Warren Curry, VP of sales for Skyryse. He explains, “In aviation, there’s a lot of ‘vaporware.’ What I mean is that there are a lot of companies over-promising technology as being almost available, but it’s actually years away…. People see (our SkyOS operating system and coming Skyryse One helicopter) as being half a decade away, but our FAA certification is imminent. We’re shipping Skyryse One in 2026.”
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Tags:
SkyOS operating system
Skyryse One helicopter
Categories:
Career Development
Human Interest
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May
27
2025
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Posted by Admin
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RPMN: What is your current position?
I work as a utility helicopter pilot in Alaska, where a helicopter is often the only way to transport passengers and supplies to remote areas. Conducting aerial surveys, pipeline, and power-line inspections, slinging equipment to mountain tops or conducting crew changes for offshore platforms and container ships in the Bell 206 and 407 are just a few examples of my various tasks. The ever-changing weather can be a challenge: Besides extreme temperatures, we often deal with complex weather patterns that can shift rapidly and unpredictably.
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Tags:
Jani Hartung
Utility Helicopter
Categories:
Human Interest
Career Development
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May
12
2025
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Posted by Admin
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We catch Gretchen Johnson in a rare hour of relatively free time. She was in Orlando, having headed south from her metro-Atlanta home, when she said in a cultured, soft Southern accent that would make Scarlett O’Hara sit up and take notice, “Thank you so much for choosing to spend an hour with me; I’m flattered. Hopefully, something I say will be worth repeating. It’s wonderful being down here in Florida because now Miss Georgia can’t decide whether she’s winter or spring.”
Make up your cotton-pickin’ mind, Miss Georgia!
It would be wrong to base an assumption on Johnson’s accent and Southern manners that she’s some antebellum belle. The CEO and founder of DaVinciSKY was in Orlando for a “Women in Power” symposium—and that could be a clever pun because Johnson’s flagship company and its subsidiaries feature helicopters in power-line construction, inspection, and maintenance.
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Tags:
DaVinciSKY
power line patrol helicopter
Utility Helicopter
Categories:
Opinion-Editorial
Human Interest
Company Profiles