Success Story - Carlos Calleja Morencia

Who is your current employer?

Second-in-command at Inaer Helicopters, Spain, on a medical emergency service

What kind of helicopter(s) do you fly?

EC-135-T2 & SA365 N3 known in the USA as HH-65

Is there anything particularly challenging or unique about your current job?

We actually have a 5 minutes response from the activation of the emergency to take off. We operate from 2700 ft msl to 8000ft msl on a 300 miles radius and most of the times don't know that much about the weight of the injured neither the hospital we will move it to, so performance calculations most of the times is pretty much a challenge depending on weather conditions and the weight of the injured, the last one is only known once you get to the place of the ocurrence.

Do you feel Mauna Loa adequately trained you for the real world?

Yes, especially since I feel very comfortable when performing confined approaches, and we do them all the time.

What did you like best about your MLH training experience?

I really like the fact of being like a small family and the different locations, I mean, during my training I met a lot of students and instructors from diferent backgrounds. I think this is a good way to mature as a pilot

Would you recommend Mauna Loa Helicopters to others?

Absolutely, after trainning also in Spain I appreciate the difference even more.

Other comments

Thanks to everybody at Mauna Loa staff that help me to reach my objetives in such a short period. You try always hard with flexibity and efficiency. Also gonna thank Brant Swigart for the support he gave me. Mahalo and hope I see you soon for my IFR rating.