profession: pilot career: actor - Jet Aviation

01 Terravista’s private airport has
a 1500-meter runway
02 Michael Gail as captain of a
Tropic Air jet
03 The FBO at Terravista Airport
were not supportive of the idea. At about
26, when he had finished university and
had money of his own, he learned to fly.
From there he continued on to get his Air-
line Transport Pilot rating.
Gail flew in his free time, but that was
never quite enough for him. In Germany
he took over a Piper dealership together
with a friend. They had Piper Cheyenne
demonstration aircraft for the business,
and these needed to be flown regularly, so
he began an air taxi business. He had the
maintenance done at Jet Aviation Kassel.
When it came time to move to Brazil, he
flew one of the Cheyenne airplanes to his
new home. Once again, however, the bit
of flying that he could do in his free time
was not enough. He wanted flying to play
a larger role in his life. In Puerto Seguro
he had seen that tourists needed a way
to get from the main airport to isolated
hotels. He also wanted to make it as easy
as possible to get to Terravista, where he
had already built a runway.
He founded the Tropic Air air taxi company,
which has a helicopter and small planes in
01 02
03
Porto Seguro, as well as two jets in São
Paulo. He will be adding two new jets, a
Cessna Citation XLS+ and an Embraer Phenom
300, to the fleet in Sao Paulo. Sometimes
he flies the planes himself.
In the future, he hopes to expand his cooperation
with Jet Aviation. Brazil has one
of the largest business jet fleets in the
world, and that fleet is growing rapidly. “All
of these planes will need maintenance,
administration and human resources,”
says Gail. “This is the right time in Brazil.
The market is ready.”
Outlook 02/2008
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