As the Cessna 340 taxied in I couldnt help but notice the stickers that had been applied all over ther aircraft. Most of them had "Fly for MS" written on them and I had litteraly no clue what that meant. I would soon enought find out though.
The engines were cut as soon as there aircraft had parked and out came three young kids and thier parents - all beaming with BIIG smiles on thier faces. The family had won the flight to go and visit Tivoli Gardens in down town Copenhagen.
I kept asking myself "heat the heck is this all about?"
After dropping the happy family off at the terminal, I returned to meet the Crew. My first question to them: "What is this Fly for MS-thing?"
The pilots, Keith and Andrei, were eager to share thier story about "Fly for MS". It turned out that they decided to use thier passion for flying to help people. Not just any people though. Through thier jobs in New York they had both been close to people suffering from a decease called Multiple Schlerosis (MS). They had both wondered how so few knew about the decease, in particular in some eastern european countries. They there fore set out to change this by planning a crazy 2 month, 30 countires charity flight called Fly for MS.
I was intrigued by thier passion. Usually passion for aviation manifests itself in people taking up strange hobbies like number-crunching or aviation photograohy, but these guys just wanted to help people any way they could via flying. I suggested to take some nice photographs for them as my small way of donating something to the cause (If you wanna donate too you can visit thier website flyms.org ) Upon hearing I was a photographer I was quickly offered to fly along with them. I have often had these type of opportunities, but have only rarely been able to exploit them. This time was going to be different.
Andrei, myself and Kieth before they leave Copenhagen. Next time I would see them was 10 days later in Prague, where I would join them on thier flight as thier photographer - As our way of helping the guys our company gave them the handling for free and we even managed to get CPH to waive landing and parking fees:
Keith and Andrei waving good bye before heading to Sweden:
On september 24th I travelled to Prague to meet the Cessna and Keith and Andrei again. I was a little apprehensive as I obviously didnt know them very well and as communication after they had left Copenhagen had been kept to a minimum. The aircraft was parked at the small Prague airfield called Letnany. There was no sign of Keith or Andrei yet so I decided to have a look around - there were quite a few light airplanes and quite a few of them were of Czech origin such as this Zlin 50:
Suddenly Keith turned up. It was obvious that he was in a hurry when he said "We are flying MS patients in 2 hous, but we have to go a have an oil change first!" - Go and have an oil-change, OK but where? "Kbely !"
I knew Kbely from a previous visit years ago and knew this was a military field very near Letnany. Well in fact just across the road, Litterally. Five minutes later we were taxiing out onto Letnany´s grass runway with Keith at the controls:
After a rather bumpy take off (my first from grass) we quickly turned finals to the big concrete runway at Kbely:
On approach I couldnt help but notice a large number of aircraft on the field and I got more excited as it turned out that a few could be photographed when taxiing in:
After a short taxi we arrived at the civil work shop. The aircraft was soon towed inside and made ready for the oil change:
We were soon joined by a lovely czech news reporter who interviewed Keith about Fly for MS and who joined us on the small flight back to Letnany:
When taking off, a little delayed, from Kbely I once again got an opportunity to snap a few pictures:
Some of the aircraft was belonging to the fabulous musuem based at Kbely, which I unfortunatly didnt get to visit again on this occasion:
Bye bye Kbely - and Bye bye 154´s that have been stored since the arrival of a newer Airbus A319CJ:
In this shot you can see just how close Letnany and Kbely really is. On the top left is the grass field of Letnany and on the right Kbely:
Back at Letnany people with MS, some in wheelchairs, were waiting for us. I had to rush my rental car back to town as we were leaving to Romania immediatly after flying the Czech MS people. This was going to be the first change of plan of many. I had expected another day in Prague but was excited about going to Romania. I did however get a chance to quickly shoot some more aircraft at Letnany before leaving:
These Mig´s (7 in total)were all stored frames from the museum at Kbely, across the road:
Here the passengers before departing Letnany. Anneli, en Estonian donater on the left and Hanna, who suffers from MS, and her brother on the right:
To be continued
