How I Came to Meet Enstrom….
In January 2017, I took up the position of Director of the Pardubice Flight Training Center of the state-owned company LOM PRAHA. When the director of LOM offered me this position at the time, the main reason gave rise to the possibility that, after eight years with the air ambulance service, I would again fly the Mi-24 These beasts were undergoing general overhaul at LOM and this was always followed by the obligatory test flight. I had experience with this type of work and was looking forward to it.
ENSTROM
How I Came to Meet Enstrom….How I Came to Meet Enstrom….
Jaroslav Špaček
Foto: Petr Kolmann
In January 2017, I took up the position of
Director of the Pardubice Flight Training Center
of the state-owned company LOM PRAHA.
When the director of LOM offered me this
position at the time, the main reason gave rise
to the possibility that, after eight years with
the air ambulance service, I would again fly the
Mi-24 These beasts were undergoing general
overhaul at LOM and this was always followed
by the obligatory test flight. I had experience
with this type of work and was looking forward
to it.
The second attraction to accept the post
that came up during the interview was the
line ‘Instead of the Mi-2s, you will get a new
helicopter’. So I accepted, started to get
acquainted with the environment and the many
tasks that the CLV required at that time (not
much different today). Finally, around March,
I asked: ‘So tell me Roman, what will the
new helicopter be, anyway?’ The answer was
surprising….’what? You haven’t chosen one yet?’
So I started playing around with
specifications in the evenings, which I then
fine-tuned with my helicopter pilot colleagues,
and finally came up with a tender for
a light, single-engine training helicopter with
a turbine engine, a ‘glass cockpit’, equipment for
carrying payloads and flying with NVG. In the
end, four companies entered the competition
with offers. If I go from the most expensive,
there was the Airbus H-125, Agusta (Swidnik)
SW-4, Bell 505 and Enstrom 480B
-
G. The
H-125 was expensive to the point of absurdly
so, and its agility was not entirely suitable for
basic training. The Poles from the academy
in Deblin themselves warned us against the
SW-4, and the Bell 505 was not able to deliver
NVG certification on time. So we were left with
the Enstrom... No one really liked it, it didn't
dazzle in any way, but it met all the conditions
of the competition, and it was also the
cheapest. A contract was signed for the lease
of four helicopters in military camouflage
with yellow trim and the installation of
a third, military, radio. The camouflage scheme
roughly corresponded to that of Czech military
helicopters (albeit with one less grey shade,
that of the bottom colour) and came from the
well-known aviation journalist Petr Kolmann,
who later also designed camouflage schemes
for the L-39NG and Z-143/242.
Even before the arrival of our Enstroms,
I, together with two other CLV instructors
with civilian licenses, retrained on helicopter
OK
-
ENS with an analog instrument panel and
on OK
-
ENG with a glass cockpit G1000 of the
Hradec Králové company DSA. I was retrained
by Canadian instructor Charles Powis, and
recertification, including that of an instructor,
was conducted by Dan Tucek. There was one
little gem from flying with Charles, coming
when he specified a place for me to land
in the middle of a forest on an area that an
experienced ambulance pilot would not be
ashamed of, I pointed out that it was a single-
engine helicopter… the answer that made its
way back to me was ‘But it has a good engine,
you have to have faith in it!’ And I started to like
flying that little thing!
On June 1st, 2018, another Enstrom
instructor, an American, and I flew the first
INFO Eduard14
March 2026