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NEWS RELEASE
The Ultimate Flight Lesson: Crossing the North Atlantic
ANSWER: The North Atlantic Challenge. On Thursday, July 13, 2006, Ben Riecken, who teaches flying at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and Jean Olivier Mbog, a senior majoring in aeronautical science, will begin piloting a new Piper Seneca V aircraft from the factory in Vero Beach, Fla., to an airplane dealership in Odense, Denmark. Riecken has an aeronautical science degree from the university. During their 13-day aerial hopscotch up the East Coast and across the North Atlantic, the young aviators plan to talk with reporters and young people along the way about the ups and downs of flying. Riecken, who is from Belgium, speaks English, French, and German. Mbog, from Cameroon, speaks English and French. They also will post a daily diary in English about their journey on the “Updates” section of their website, www.northatlanticchallenge.com. The Seneca V they are flying will be the first in Europe equipped with the Avidyne FlightMax Entegra instrument system, a multi-function glass-panel display that includes a full-feature moving map, radar and satellite weather data, flight tracking, two-way text messaging, and autopilot. The six-seat plane from Piper is one of the world’s top-selling twin-engine piston aircraft. Riecken and Mbog will cover 5,100 nautical miles from start to finish, with the longest leg being 487 nautical miles from Iqaluit Airport, in northern Canada, to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. Their final destination, Air Alpha Aircraft Sales, is located in Odense, Denmark, where Hans Christian Andersen lived and wrote his beloved fairy tales. “We wanted to do something different,” Riecken says. “Crossing the North Atlantic still has the aura of doing it like the pioneer aviators in the early days.” One thing that will be different is navigation. “There is no radar coverage over the ocean, so we’ll need to report our position as we go. We’ll also be following the contrails of airliners passing above us,” Riecken says. “These two young men have been well prepared for this flight,” says Frank Ayers, chair of the flight training department at Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach, Fla., campus. “The skills they’ll need for such things as international flight operations, survival readiness, remote flying, and fluctuating weather are taught to our aeronautical science students in their third and fourth years.” Aircraft in the university’s training fleet are equipped with an ADS-B collision-avoidance system and an all-glass cockpit suite that is similar to the one in the Seneca V. Itinerary for the North Atlantic Challenge: Day 1: Vero Beach, Fla., to Daytona Beach, Fla., to
Savannah, Ga. Embry-Riddle, the world’s largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace, offers more than 30 degree programs in its colleges of Arts and Sciences, Aviation, Business, and Engineering and meets the needs of students and industry through its educational, training, research, and consulting activities. Embry-Riddle educates more than 32,000 students annually in undergraduate and graduate programs at residential campuses in Prescott, Ariz., and Daytona Beach, Fla., through the Extended Campus at more than 130 teaching centers in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Middle East, and through distance learning. |
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