African Pilot Newsletter Vol.5 No.46
The Gerry Broberg saga explained
Much has been said about the article on the delivery of three Huey helicopters from Cape Town to Livingstone in Zambia by a team from Executive Helicopters. The story, written by Alan Fanaroff and the placing of a quarter page advertisement by Alan has solicited much criticism from certain readers. This article was edited in order to remove many of the unnecessary references made to Mr. Broberg, but then a little gremlin got into our works and the un-edited version was placed in error. However, the fact remains that Mr. Broberg did try to stop the export of three Huey helicopters from Executive Helicopters to the Zambian Air Force. The question that people should be asking is why did he take such drastic action? And what did he have to gain from not allowing a normal business transaction from taking place? According to Executive Helicopters all the required paperwork was in place for the export of military equipment to one of our northern neighbours. Once these helicopters were out of South Africa they are no longer the responsibility of the SA CAA.
African Pilot agrees that the placing of the advert could have been prevented, but then this was a normal business transaction, which was paid for. There is no doubt that where there is smoke there is usually a fire and according to Alan Fanaroff this particular advert has solicited many complaints from far and wide about the person in question.
African Pilot does not wish to become embroiled in a squabble between two organisations or persons and therefore we wish to disassociate ourselves from the argument.
Since acquiring the Huey operation, Executive Helicopters have done everything in their power to normalise Huey operations in South Africa . Indeed, there are several other Hueys already operating within South Africa and more are going into operation in the near future. All the machines have been through vigorous refurbishment at the Executive Helicopters base in Cape Town and are being returned to active service in a variety of commercial roles in the normal course of business. Our December edition contains an article on the history of the Bell 205 Huey written by assistant editor, Mark Mansfield. The cover picture is a great head-on shot of one of the Cape Town Hueys also taken by Mark.
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Abusive thread on AVCOM
It seems that the article and advertisement attracted abuse including foul language from an individual who obviously felt he had to take out his vengeance on the AVCOM forum.
African Pilot applauds the moderators of AVCOM and Chris Booysen in particular for having what it takes to remove offending postings.
The following is a direct quote from Chris Booysen on AVCOM:
“There is a huge difference between criticism and abuse. When a poster has to resort to the type of language that was used then it is a moderator's duty to remove that post.
You have been around long enough to know that Avcom was self moderated until the character assassination got out of hand. After that the majority of Avcommers agreed that we need to appoint moderators and that those type of posts be removed.
Self moderation on Avcom - what a joke! I have had to remove two posts this week of full frontal nudity. Both male and female. On an aviation forum? Some people just don't know how to behave!”
To make matters worse a certain person who calls himself ‘ Goga ' keeps making unfounded statements about African Pilot, simply because he probably has a personal axe to grind. For the record SIR, the latest ABC statistics clearly show African Pilot's continued growth in this highly contested market segment. What is abundantly clear is the fact that African Pilot is selling more magazines every month; a growth curve which is exciting for our team.
Mhhhhh................Goga, you naughty boy 