Al Sousa, Operations Manager

Before coming to Helinet Aviation, Al Sousa worked as a special effects technician, designing and building animatronic characters for special effects wizard, Stan Winston, from 1989 to 2001. His work has appeared in such movies as Total Recall, all three Jurassic Park movies, two of the RoboCop movies, the original Budweiser Frogs commercial and many others.

While still working in special effects, Al pursued his lifelong dream of flying helicopters by taking lessons and amassing flight hours. In 2001, Al began to work part-time as a helicopter flight instructor, and in 2004, he was hired by Helinet Aviation as a full-time electronic news gathering (ENG) pilot.

Soon after, Al became a full-time charter pilot, and then, in 2008, he became Operations Manager. In this role, Al supervises the dispatch department and works to meet the needs of Helinet Aviation's charter clients, among other responsibilities. Because of his charter experience, Al is familiar with all customer requests and how best to support them. He has also created an ongoing list of off-airport landing sites, enabling greater versatility for Helinet Aviation's charter clients.

Al has 4,200 flight hours in various helicopters, including the Bell JetRanger, Bell LongRanger, Eurocopter AStar, Eurocopter TwinStar and the Augusta 109. His ratings include: Commercial Pilot Helicopter, Instrument Helicopter, CFI Helicopter and CFI Instrument Helicopter.