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If our expansion to North America was going to work, the first thing we needed was a reliable air-to-air platform. In October 2022, we visited all of the US Skyvan operators across the US to get to know them in person and make sure they could provide us with a suitable Skyvan photoship capable of flying the same type of photomissions that has made us so famous in Europe.
In just seven days we had multiple meetings in Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Orlando. We also attended the ICAS convention in Las Vegas in December 2022. We were very excited for the many incredible opportunities that presented themselves as the ‘new’ North America airshow territory opened up for us.
We met our media partners Ricardo von Puttkamer, Chief Correspondent of Aviation Photojournal and ICAS member, and Larry Grace (International Society for Aviation Photography/ICAS member). Much to our delight, it turned out that a lot of ICAS delegates were already familiar with our work and exploits.
Not long thereafter, in March 2023 we found ourselves back in the US in Arizona for two days of test flights with Skydive Arizona providing the Skyvan photoship.
Our objective was to test and hone the flying and air-to-air procedures and see if they are compatible with our concept in Europe. We had great support in advance from the FAA, and would focus on two days of flying with a variety of aircraft.