The flight school Northern Helicopters has just announced that it will open a training facility at Gothenburg City Airport (“Säve) in September. In addition to the new base, the company will expand its business by adding a twin-engined Eurocopter AS 355 N to the fleet. The new aircraft will be used for the company’s upcoming training segment – instrument ratings (IR).

Mikael Randheim, CEO of Northern Helicopters, says that the expansion means that the company will move its main base to Gothenburg, but that the Jönköping station will persist for the time being. The company will be moving in to a facility with classrooms and a 400m² hangar space at the “civil” side of the Säve aerodrome.

Randheim says that the Gothenburg division will offer all phases of flight training; including flight instructor courses and the new IR segment. The company has submitted its manuals to the Swedish Transport Agency and Randheim hopes that the IR training will be operational in the autumn. “We have facilities and instructors ready, and the helicopter is arriving next week” he says. According to Randheim, the flight school aims to attract new IR students by offering in-house, theory-included, twin-engine instrument ratings at a fixed price.

“This is a natural step for our school” he says, and refers to the organization’s ambition to train its students for larger platforms – the Cabri in preparation for aircraft like the EC120, the EC120 for more sophisticated helicopters, and now the AS355 for big multi-engine rotorcraft. According to Randheim, the Gothenburg base will be an “all-Eurocopter” (Airbus, soon to be) station with the G2 as a first-step aircraft. In the future, he hopes to be able to expand the company’s line of business and offer maintenance services for external costumers at the Gothenburg base as well.

Reproduced from Nordic Rotors with permission. Copyright and full responsibility for the content of this article remains with Nordic Rotors