The two Greek creators have managed to export because the demand is greater outside of Greece and beyond Greek PA fans
“The love for the aviation concept is universal and with the development of technology everyone wants something of the…wings used by pilots, a taste of flight! For me, this also means shivers of emotion in front of an image of my father in the uniform of a PA operator…” In this sentence, a young Greek sums up the feelings of love and appreciation for his father – a former pilot of Polemiki Aviation and flights, two parameters in his life that have already led him to two special ventures.
For the Father and Flight. The young man Michalis Tsaltas decided on the one hand to complete a personal project and on the other hand to make the… madness for Aviation an exportable product. “The love for the aviation concept, for fighters and our Air Force goes back many years, since I was a small child, as I come from our Air Force base and grew up at the 114th Fighter Wing Air Base. About 15 years ago, I decided to put this love into action, starting a venture, a unique project. Creating a Mirage F-1CG cockpit, like my dad’s, in my home, with an authenticity that I wanted to be at a high level. This today with the help of many friends and… lovers of flight has been completed to a very large extent and with this I feel that I have managed to honor my beloved father. And then the spark for something else started…!” The young creator explained while speaking to the APE-MPE radio station, “Agency 104.9FM”.
To the father with love…
A few years after this particular personal “project of honor to the father” and through special circumstances, life brought something that led Mr. Tsalta’s creativity to another path. “It was the construction work I needed for my personal project that suddenly led to another idea… Specifically in 2021 together with a friend of mine, Andrea Nikolis, we thought of making copies of the controls and power levers of fighter aircraft, with in order to give them to those who love flight and want to decorate their aviation corner. We took the leap and so – for the first two years as a hobby and amateur – we started making molds and initially removing controls from French fighters that passed through our Air Force. It finally appeared that we are not the only ones with the flight… screwed in the mind!”, explained the young man.
The two friends then gave some of their creations away for free to the base of the 114th Fighter Wing. And that’s how hobby and love brought the different. “At that time, somehow, magically, our effort was liked by people in the Air Force and the Ministry of National Defense, from where we were asked to make them a control replica of the Air Force’s new acquisition: the French Rafale fighter. It gave us great joy and motivation when we learned that this copy we produced was intended as a gift from the then Deputy Minister of National Defense for the birthdays of Government officials. It was this spark to light the fire so that what we started to upgrade and make it even better, with means of new technology such as the use of digital scanning and printing with 3D printers… We said let’s fight it!” commented Mr. Tsaltas and together with his friend they proceeded to found the company A&M, using for its title the initials of their first names, Andreas and Michalis.
“Export” aviation concept
This small effort became an export in no time with the creativity of the Greek duo bringing… foreign exchange. “Now with the support of people from Greece and abroad, we receive authentic aircraft controls and levers. We ‘convert’ these into a digital file and produce faithful replicas with all our collectible gadgets even having working switches and triggers to give the collector a realistic feel of the item they are holding in their hands … a bit of a pilot!”, explains Mr. Tsaltas.
The two Greek creators have managed to export because the demand is greater outside of Greece and beyond the Greek fans of PA. “Our desire is to make agreements and collaborations with Air Force Squadrons and not only” while at the moment “we are completing the range of French fighters, and immediately after that we will start the American ones with an open eye to whatever else is asked of us… And everything, to have started from the love for the man thanks to whom I exist today, my father…”, concludes Mr. Tsaltas.
Source: Skai
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