AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2023 - 61

Andreas von Flotow (top left) and Brian Prange (left) both live and fly in
the Hood River, Oregon, area and are avid backcountry pilots. It's their
love of adventure flying that keeps them busy with new students, new
expeditions, and new products for the TacAero line, which includes nearly
20 CubCrafter Cubs, as well as other training aircraft and a Waco UPF-7
used for sightseeing trips. The TacAero FBOs in the Pacific Northwest are
located at Ken Jernstedt Airfield (4S2) in Hood River and the Columbia
Gorge Regional Airport (DLS) in Dallesport, Washington.
A new pilot
Peter Jenkins, a young officer with the
British army and native of Kenya, spent a
month in Hood River in late 2022 earning
his private pilot certificate and tailwheel
endorsement through TacAero. The Kenyan
immersed himself in flying with instructor
Lars Ljungqvist, earning his certificate after
" We wanted to start a commercial endeavor and realized
our love of general aviation-especially yellow Cubs-would
actually make a great intersection since that aircraft well-represented
the flight profile of the small UAVs we operated. It
is called a 'surrogate UAV' when we mimic the attributes of
a flying drone with a manned aircraft. We modified a Cub to
start flight testing in Hood River and also got to work with
precision agriculture mapping. "
TacAero's aircraft are configured to accept specialized aerial
sensor systems. Pilots fly multi-spectral camera systems
to support the precision agriculture needs of Midwest farmers,
and also provide geographic information system imaging
processing services. Pilots perform the flight testing and certification
of sophisticated imaging payloads for civil and
military applications, many of which end up on unmanned
aerial vehicles. TacAero provides search and rescue, fire overwatch,
and emergency response for oil spills, earthquakes,
mudslides, and other incidents.
64 hours, first flying a Piper J-3 Cub and
then the CubCrafters Top Cub. His father, a
wildlife conservationist in Kenya, encouraged
his son to study at TacAero after several of
the company pilots had visited there. " Flying
with my dad had given me a bit of a love
of flying. After I give back my time in the
army, I'd like to get involved in conservation
in Kenya in which aviation is a pretty useful
tool, " Jenkins said. " The protected areas my
dad has worked in are pretty large and if
you don't have an aircraft, it's quite hard to
see not only the areas getting impacted by
humans but also see where there's rainfall;
if those areas have high rainfall its majorly
where the wildlife is going to be and as a
result of that it's going to be a high impact
area for poaching. An aircraft just makes it
so much easier to access larger parts of the
park. " In celebration of his new certificate,
Jenkins and Ljungqvist were planning on
flying the Top Cub out to the coast, an area
the younger pilot had never seen. " Lars and
I have landed in places where you probably
wouldn't be able to get to in other aircraft.
It's been great fun. " -JSW
AOPA PILOT / January 2023
61
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2023

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