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The Pilots
By Antalya Balloons | July 24, 2008
Peter Flaggl junior
Peter shares his working life between Antalya Balloons and his family’s balloon company in Austria. Born into the business thanks to his father’s passion for ballooning, Peter has been a pilot for 12 years and has clocked up over 3,500 balloon flights in all types and sizes of balloon. Peter is a specialist in high-altitude and long-distance flying in the Austrian Alps and has organised many international balloons fiestas and competitions.
Married to the lovely Irene, herself a highly experienced balloon pilot, Peter lives with his extended family in the most picturesque part of rural Austria when he is not working in Turkey.
Mustafa Bozlak
A Cappadocian, born and bred, Mustafa served his apprenticeship on the ground with Kapadokya Balloons. After six years as Crew Chief, he was selected to train as a Pilot in his own right. Crewing on the ground is the best form of training and this long apprenticeship is reflected particularly in the quality of Mustafa’s flying. His understanding and knowledge of the Cappadocia and Antalya regions and their meteorological conditions allow him to get the very best from the morning’s flight.
Mustafa lives in Avanos with his wife, young daughter and an insatiable baklava habit!
Mike Green
Mike first came came to Cappadocia for a season in 2000 to help establish our ’sponsored flight programme’. Eight seasons later he is one the most experienced and long-serving pilots in Turkey! A tall man and a big balloon specialist, there’s not much Mike isn’t able to do or make up about ballooning! Mike’s finesse with such large aircraft is legendary and allows him to squeeze into the tightest spots. His flying here in Turkey and back in England, and in other exotic locations including the North Pole, have given Mike the experience necessary to get the most from what Turkey has to offer balloon passengers. Mike comes with his Crew Chief Salim, who has loyally served Kapadokya Balloons and its subsidiary Antalya Balloons for the past 16 years.
Mike is married to Ali and their son Alfie spent all his early life here. Alfie is first-string crew when not back at school in England.
Stefan Jäkel
A pilot for 8 years with more than 700 flights logged, and also a wizard with all things mechanical and technical, Stefan is very familiar with the thrills and challenges of high-altitude and long-distance flying in the Austrian Alps. He brings a wealth of ballooning experience to the company, having flown all types and sizes of balloons in his brief but busy career.
Married to Monika for just one year, Stefan spends time when not ballooning on working on their house in the charming village of Stubenberg, in the picture-postcard foothills of the Austrian Alps.
Serhan Leki
Serhan was involved from the very beginning in establishing Turkey as a world capital of ballooning. He has served our company in many capacities, from ground crew to Company Manager, and nowadays as one of the most experienced pilots in the country. Being tri-lingual and having the best looking dog in the company, he is in high demand: detailed briefings and trailer-landings a speciality!
Originally from Istanbul, Serhan is married to Asli and lives in Urgup with their dog Badem.
Mike Miners
It is difficult to shake off the delight of ballooning and Mike was hooked from the age of seven after his first flight with Lars! About twenty years later he joined Kapadokya Balloons to fly in his own right. From the outset Mike has shown an extraordinary ability in all aspects of handling and piloting balloons. His friendly, outgoing nature makes him a favourite with our passengers, capturing the spirit of the adventure with his enthusiasm and sense of humour.
Along with his charming New Zealand-born fiancée Jess Parker, Mike is busily restoring a cave house in Cavusin and they will live there following their Saint Valentine’s Day wedding in 2009.
Lars and Kaili
Lars and Kaili were the founders of passenger balloon flights in Turkey and have witnessed their influence through the extraordinary growth of ballooning in the Cappadocia region. As the owners and chief pilots of Antalya Balloons™, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kapadokya Balloons™, they have a combined experience of a dizzying fifty-five years in the passenger business! See if you can come up with a question they haven’t already been asked! Their dog Becks will frequently follow the flight on foot, providing a delightful perspective from the air of her skill, enthusiasm and downright endurance! A Swede married to a bi-national Turkish/ Englishwoman with a home in France, Lars and Kaili speak more than half a dozen languages fluently and are acknowledged by their peers to be among the top balloon pilots in the world today.
Lars and Kaili specialize in flying an “aerial ballet pas-de-deux”, with their identical balloons floating in tandem through the landscape, so a flight with this pair is truly an experience of a lifetime. Drawing on the accumulated skill of balloon- flying all over Europe, America and, of course, for the past 18 years in Turkey, it is absolutely guaranteed that you’ll be enjoying the very best there is!
“Inspiring confidence and sharing the thrill with first-time and repeat passengers alike is a pilot’s greatest privilege”.
Topics: Ballooning |
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