RWS 99 - Helicopter Flying in Iceland with Tryggvi Helgason

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Tryggvi Helgason has been a pilot with the Icelandic Coast Guard since 2016. Prior to this he flew helicopter tours out of Reykjavík.

It is not unusual for helicopter pilots to take a winding route to before they end up with a career in the cockpit. Tryggvi worked as a baggage handler, in flight operations and as a quality auditor before taking on a flying job. Now he is flying for the Icelandic Coast Guard on missions as varied as long distance maritime rescue, inflight refueling, film flying, HEMS and VIP transport.

In the middle of march this year a volcano in Iceland erupted and has been oozing out lava ever since. As you can imagine – any time ancient molten rock from the earth’s mantle starts to flow on to the surface it makes for quite an attention grabbing sight.

Not surprisingly the best place to catch a view is from the air. One of the photos I saw being passed around on social media was taken by Tryggvi.

That seemed like as good an excuse as any to find out more about flying in a corner of the world that not many of us get to. I reached out to Tryggvi to see if he would be keen to tell us more about it.

Now Iceland is a long, long way north. Picture if you would, for comparison, the very bottom of south america, as close as you can get to antarctica without swimming, that puts you at 56 degrees latitude south.

Well Iceland is 65 degrees latitude north – another 9 degs or 540nm again closer to the North Pole.

In this chat with Tryggvi we talk about helicopter aviation in Iceland, the coast guard service and about the current volcano action they have going on.