Pilot Roster

webkiwi

 

Who said Kiwi’s couldn’t fly?

 

Hi, my name is Michael, and I am a … flightsimulatorholic (thanks to Bob Holland and his fantastic hop servers)

 

14 years with United Airlines has given me a little bit of “aviation” experience, but I was furloughed after the events of 9/11. I now work for the government, but don’t tell anyone, ok?

 

I am originally from New Zealand, but (legally) immigrated to the USA in 1993, became a US Citizen in 2002, and now nest just north of Chicago, Illinois.

 

Glenorchy, South Island, New Zealand

 

Opononi, North Island, New Zealand

 

Middle Earth! Filming for the Lord of the Rings took place here.


NZQN, South Island, New Zealand. Fun place to land!

 

In addition, I have about 8 years of Law Enforcement experience and currently volunteer as a Tactical Flight Officer with the Law Enforcement Aviation Coalition (LEAC), based at KENW. As a result, I have also started painting aircraft as there is nothing cooler than flying our police helicopter in flight simulator. We even used flight sim to decide on the paint scheme of our latest helicopter, a DoD surplus Bell OH-58C and I would ike to figure a way to use flight sim for crew training.

 

 

 LEAC EC-135 on local news coverage               Refueling stop during a mission

 

LEAC EC-135 ‘Air One’ at KMDW


LEAC EC-135 ‘Air One’ in FS2004

 

 

      Our new LEAC OH-58C as delivered                  LEAC OH-58C proposed paint in FS2004

 

 

LEAC OH-58C proposed paint in FS2004

 

My flight preference is rotary wing (for obvious reasons), but seem to find myself in either a Dash 7, Beech Twin Bonanza a lot, or more recently a A-1H Skyraider, especially during the NJ Short Hops. I love floatplanes, and hope to see a floatplane hop sometime. I also read an article recently about “flying” Route 66, which sounds like it would be an interesting helo hop list…

 

Look forward to talking and flying with you all soon. Oh, BTW, check out the Google Earth links on Bob’s site. You can track your flight progress and is an AWESOME feature that apparently not many people know about.

 

Some of my frequently visited sites…

 

www.hovercontrol.com

www.rotorwash-magazine.com

www.wspilots.com

www.vladstudio.com

 

Stay safe.

 

NB: I originally had a few problems connecting and/or staying connected to the hop servers. After many frustrated evenings I finally found some online resources for configuring routers etc so thought I would share them for the next person.

 

www.portforward.com

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/823630