Two in the air, four on the ground

The crew

Two pilots flew the aircraft. A command center in Virginia, which the crew called the GACC, ran the fuel, the permits, the Russian authorities and, on at least one occasion, an argument with a credit card company.

In the aircraft

Pilot

E. "Scott" Kasprowicz

A pilot for over thirty years by 2008, flying fixed wing before nearly eight years in his own Bell 407. He founded TEXEL Corporation and ran it for twenty years, growing it from two people working from home to a national business with twelve field offices and more than five hundred employees. Inc. ranked it 95th in the country's five hundred fastest growing companies in 1988. He sold it in 1999.

Most recently before the flight he had served as Deputy Secretary of Transportation for the Commonwealth of Virginia under Governor Tim Kaine, responsible for all rail and aviation in the state.

The idea started at HeliExpo in 2005, when he was introduced to the A109S Grand. He ordered one that year, formed ROTOR1US Aviation, and spent nearly a year with Steve Sheik designing the avionics layout while the fuselage was assembled in Italy.

Co-pilot and Director of Flight Operations

Steve Sheik

Began his aviation career in 1992. Airline Transport Pilot, with Certified Flight Instructor and Instrument Flight Instructor ratings.

He came to ROTOR1US from the Maryland State Police, where he was an instructor pilot training crews for medevac, search and rescue, and law enforcement missions. He had flown in Alaska, and had planned and flown a number of long cross country and international ferry flights before this one.

In 2007, the year before the circumnavigation, he and Kasprowicz took the transcontinental helicopter record from New York to Los Angeles in the same aircraft, beating the old mark by nearly four hours.

The Grand Adventure Command Centre

The half of the record that never left Virginia

With roughly half the elapsed record spent on the ground, the people arranging that ground were not support staff. They were the other half of the attempt.

Director of Ground Operations and Flight Logistics

Harlan Hamlin

A private, instrument and multi engine rated pilot with over 5,000 hours, and president of TracPlus USA. He ran ground operations, telecommunications, fuel and maintenance logistics, and brought Natalia Nizker onto the team to deal with the Russian aviation authorities.

When Russian fuel became the obstacle that would cost them the schedule, it was the command center that flew fuel in from Alaska instead.

Coordinator of Russian Operations

Natalia Nizker

A native of Saratov, multilingual, a graduate of Saratov State University in linguistics and foreign languages, and at the time an elementary school teacher in Georgia.

She handled the entire Russian ground operation: 19 fuel stops, 4 overnight stops, 9 time zones, and the requirement that a Russian official be aboard the aircraft at all times. It was the most thinly supported part of the route by a wide margin.

Logistics Support and Administration

Donna Hickman

A Northern Virginian with a background in finance and bank management, handling administration and ground logistics, and the finances of the attempt.

Hers is the line from 9 August that says more about international record flying than any statistic: "We had to explain to the Credit Card company how a card could be in so many countries on the one day."

Director of Business and Brand Development

Bruce Labovitz

A long time friend of Kasprowicz, the two having first worked together on a voice over IP telecommunications start up in 1999. He worked on the public face of the Grand Adventure.

Outside it he was Chief Financial Officer of Comstock Homebuilding, where he took the company public.

A note on this page

All of the above is as the crew described themselves on their own site in the summer of 2008. Nothing here has been updated for the eighteen years since, because the point of this site is to preserve the record as it stood, not to write anybody's biography.