Paul Bossens, and Pete Koekelkoren made a successful trip in a Robinson R-44 Clipper II (OO-HEY) from Brussels, Belgium to Oshkosh for the airshow and then on to Los Angeles.  The trip covered more than 9,000 nm, flown over a month.

This was their second try at the transatlantic crossing.  They started out with the HeliVenture group of helicopters in the summer of 2007 that made the trip to Oshkosh in celebration of the 100th anniversary of helicopter flight in France. Unfortunately, Paul and company had to give up in Iceland due to a technical problem, and return home to Belgium.

This year's successful trip was made via Scotland, Faroe islands, Iceland, Greenland, Nunavut, Canada and on to the USA.

They stopped in Iqaluit for a couple of days, arriving in SVFR conditions on July 17th.  Heavy overcast and rain forced them to rest a couple of days here, but they picked up clear weather and continued south on July 21st.

After a stop for Air Venture at Oshkosh, they travelled across the US to Los Angeles, and Torrance, California to the home of Robinson Helicopters.

We tracked them daily on the SkyTrac DSAT-300 satellite tracking system. The tracking was excellent, both in real-time mode and in the ability to view the historical data of the trip.  The system appears to have provided complete tracking in the Greenland-Qikiqtarjuaq-Pangrnirtung-Iqaluit corridor, which has proven difficult for some other tracking systems.