While it’s not uncommon for Bell Textron to deliver its helicopters to customers around the world, it is unusual for a buyer from Ukraine to pick one up at the factory in Mirabel, Canada, and fly it home. But that’s exactly what an unnamed customer did last week.
After taking delivery of a Bell 407GXi, equipped for IFR flight, the customer rode along with pilot Maksym Lunov, the owner of Ukraine-based Heliclub, one of Bell’s independent representatives in the country. The light single will be used for corporate transportation.
The flight included stops in 13 different countries. “I’ve been a pilot for 13 years,” said Lunov, “and a transatlantic flight is something I’ve always wanted to do. It would not have been easily done without the IFR kit. We had no weather limitations and it allowed us to proceed with the planned route without any delays.”
“This Bell aircraft … enabled us to have a unique travel experience that most people don’t get the opportunity to do,” the customer added. “There were many highlights on the trip, but some of the most memorable were seeing the icebergs in Greenland, volcanoes and waterfalls in Iceland, and the Alps in Switzerland.”
Seeing the route of flight with refueling stops would be interesting.
Looks like it can be seen on Flight Aware, registration UR-RAH
Looks like some Marine chose the registration code.
How does one get Flight unAware to allow entry of registration?
Looks like they flew this route:
CYMX CYBC CYZV CYYR CYVP -discontinuity- BIKF BIEG ekvg EGPC EGCM EGKB ELLX LSZH LKPR LKMT UKLL UKBB
Interesting that there’s no record between Canada and Iceland. I guess they didn’t file IFR for those legs. But they left CYVP going north. Maybe they flew to CYFB, then BGGH, BGKK?
That’s an epic 26 day trip!
Sounds like a Biden connection here… didn’t he through his corrupt son have deals there?
Helicopters are great for hovering. Not so great for traveling. A trip that long in one might be punishment. Same kind of thing goes for aerobatic airplanes. Not great for flying in a straight line for hours on end.
Neat.
There are routes, remnants of Bluie and Crimson from delivering airplanes to WWII.
Greenland to Iceland and Iceland to the Faroe Islands are very long legs, must have had ferry tank.
(Unless there are islets with fuel along the way, even ones called ‘barge’.
I worked with old timer pilots who claimed to have flown Empire Flying Boats across the north Atlantic, landing beside barges if necessary.
My reading today suggests those were ‘connect the empire’ fights, few pax, not viable so only a few flights made.
The Faroe Islands being the closest runways to Iceland on Great
Circle routing.)