MARKUS HUETTNER

Ever since he was a little boy, Markus Huettner dreamed of flying helicopters. Whenever he heard a helicopter fly by, he ran to the window, pointing up to the sky and yelling "Mobberflieger, Mobberflieger!!!" (something like "whopperplane" in a then 4-year-old's German vocabulary).

His dream became reality in November 2002, when he arrived at Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville to enroll in Bristow Academy's Professional Pilot Program. Going from "pedestrian" to Private Pilot, via Commercial Pilot and Instrument Pilot to Certified Flight Instructor, he graduated in November 2003 and started working as a CFI in Dallas, Texas. There he also finished up his Instrument Flight Instructor two months later. After having gone through all that training himself, he eventually enjoyed passing on the wealth of knowledge that HAI / Bristow Academy furnished him with to his own helicopter students.

In July 2004 he couldn't resist the offer to serve as a copilot on a BK117 in day and night, VFR / IFR EMS operations in Columbus, Ohio. Here is where he learned the special skills that make EMS helicopter operations so demanding. And finally, that young boy's dream had become reality!

In 2006 Markus added yet another challenge to his portfolio of aviation experience: he signed up with Rotorcraft Leasing (RLC) in Broussard, Louisiana, to fly offshore oil support in the Gulf of Mexico. Landing on 25 ft by 25 ft landing pads about 120 feet above the sometimes glassy, sometimes storm-rippled waters of the Gulf on both calm, 95°F days in the summer and breezy, ice-cold days during winter provided the occasional extra spice to the daily routine as an offshore pilot in the Gulf. That is, if you found a way out to your destination through heavy banks of fog in spring and fall at all.

In September 2007 Markus decided to move back to Germany for family reasons and has since been working for EuroHeli close to Nuremberg, a family-owned company with two Eurocopter EC120's and two AS350 AStar helicopters. Here Markus is "connecting the dots" on the map of Germany and its neighboring countries. On top of numerous sightseeing flights his company provides VIP travel, movie and photographic flights, as well as cargo and external load services. Based in the heart of Central Europe, EuroHeli covers a wide range of destinations with a focus on the German-Austrian axis. Especially the just-in-time concept of the automobile industry in Germany's south necessitates the occasional short notice flight to support factories with urgently needed materials from as far away as Hungary or Poland whenever a link in the regular supply chain has failed.

The latest addition to Markus' flight experience is the sling load training he received "on the job" while supplying a mountain log cabin with firewood in the Austrian Alps, and when ferrying building supplies into the steep cliffs of the "Drachenwand" ("Dragon Wall") close to beautiful Salzburg, Austria.

Flying in Europe never gets boring...