AirPower09 "dress rehearsal" for Thomas Morgenstern

For TV programme "Sport am Sonntag" (which will be shown on ORF1 at 6pm on June 21), Thomas Morgenstern took to the skies exactly one week before AirPower09, only this time as a passenger: last Friday saw the 22-year-old double Olympic Gold medallist in ski jumping and 2008 World Cup winner climb aboard a BO-105 owned by the "Flying Bulls", experiencing for himself in the skies above Zeltweg in Styria what it feels like to loop the loop in a helicopter.

Morgenstern was flown by Siegfried "Blacky" Schwarz, the Flying Bulls' chief helicopter pilot. Schwarz is one of only three pilots in the world capable of performing a loop in a helicopter. "It was an incredible experience," beamed Morgenstern after landing at Fliegerhorst Hinterstoisser, where he will return again next Friday: "There's no way I'm going to miss AirPower09!"

Morgenstern, who has himself been in possession of a private pilot's licence since last autumn, took the opportunity to talk shop with some of the best pilots in the country, who are actually based at Fliegerhorst Hinterstoisser. Squadron leader and Eurofighter pilot Major Dietmar Springer let Morgenstern into some of the secrets of the Eurofighter Typhoon, Morgenstern acknowledging the parallels between the challenges of a World Cup ski jumper and a Eurofighter pilot: "The challenges are similar. The training programmes of a Eurofighter pilot and a ski jumper are equally as tough."

Picture: Thomas Morgenstern & Siegfried "Blacky" Schwarz; Copyright: BMLVS (Austrian Federal Ministry of Defence and Sports), Markus Zinner