Estimated reading time: 5-6 minutes
Uintah County Ballard — About Recent Episodes History Channel’s “Secrets of the Skinwalker Ranch”” Cameron Fugal is seen piloting a helicopter while conducting experiments over a paranormal hotspot in eastern Utah.
His flight instruments don’t read accurately and his aircraft is exposed to winds that don’t really exist. Fans of the show know that machinery and technical equipment often don’t work properly on the ranch.
Mr. Fugal, Provo-based CEO aerodynamic jet, I have always been fascinated by airplanes and flying. Even before he could speak, his parents told him that he often looked up at the sky and saw planes flying overhead.
“In retrospect, I realize now more than ever that my parents and grandparents played an important role in developing my work ethic, interests, and entrepreneurial spirit,” Fugal says.
His grandfather and father were self-employed as general contractors, and he and his brother worked for both, but were also encouraged to follow their dreams. Throughout Fugal’s childhood, his parents were of limited means, but sacrificed whatever money and time they could to help their children pursue their dreams.
For Fugal, that meant starting working toward his pilot’s license at age 15. His goal was to make his first solo flight on his 16th birthday before getting his driver’s license. His first ambition was to become a pilot in the U.S. Air Force or Navy, like his grandfather, or a commercial airline pilot.
destined to fly
Throughout his high school years, nearly all the money Fugal earned went toward gaining more flight time.
After being married through a mission in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Fugal and his new wife Danielle made sacrifices, saved money, and ultimately Became the youngest pilot. The most inexperienced receive a single pilot jet rating from a flight school in Kansas.
At about the same time, Fugal’s father’s construction company was also growing. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Niels Fugal Sons Co. began laying fiber optic cables for the burgeoning Internet and telecommunications-related services, in addition to natural gas lines.
to the sky
Traveling for employees was becoming a burden, so it made sense to use company planes. Fugal went from supervising ditch diggers and operating a backhoe to full-time piloting a company plane and eventually a company jet.
Fugal’s younger brother, Matt Fugal, who is six years younger, has a passion for cars. He calls himself “Gearhead” and his brother “Wingnut.” Matt Fugal enjoys the financial side of running a business the most, but he’s never had a desire to fly.
By 2005, the construction business merged with a public company that didn’t see the value in maintaining the planes. Provo Municipal Airport’s hangars and corporate jets had to be repurposed. Aerodynamic Jets was born.
Matt Fugal left a career in commercial real estate financing in 2011 and is currently COO and Partner at Aero Dynamic Jets, one of only two Part 135 FAA certified charter companies in Utah.
Currently, the company operates both Cessna Citation CJ3 jets and Airbus H130 helicopters, and the hangar will be able to accommodate more aircraft as the company continues to grow. The jet will be used for charter passenger flights, business flights, and private flights. Entertainers also flew to Park City by jet for the Professor of Rock Live Concert Series. This helicopter is used for short-distance cargo transport and photography missions.
Brandon Fugal, brothers Cameron and Matt and prominent commercial real estate developers in Utah, are customers and Helicopter partners. They use this to provide potential real estate customers with aerial views of properties.
Now, back to the Skinwalker Ranch in the Uintah Basin east of Roosevelt.
an event that cannot be explained
Brandon Fugal has owned the ranch since 2016 and has assembled a scientific team that includes nationally known physicists and defense contractors. travis taylor. Researchers have sought to explain paranormal phenomena that have been reported at the ranch over the years, from poltergeists to UFO sightings to potential skinwalkers (shapeshifters) from Ute and Navajo folklore. There is.
The team’s efforts are often hampered by technical glitches and equipment failures that don’t occur outside the ranch, such as during the flight of a drone or model rocket.
Aero Dynamic’s Airbus helicopters are state-of-the-art and designed for Utah’s high-altitude flights. Helicopters are frequently used in experiments on the ranch, especially over the mysterious “triangle” where invisible physical objects in the sky are observed by various scientific instruments, including the helicopter’s radar.
If I had to fly over a ranch with only reliable instruments to fly safely, I wouldn’t do it.
– Cameron Fugal, Pilot
The obvious question is, given so many potential technical failures over and within the ranch, why should the pilot risk the helicopter and everyone on board? . Matt and Cameron Fugal brought an experience that caused them to leave earlier than the rest of the group on their first trip to the ranch. They are no longer skeptical.
Cameron Fugal said the complexities of flying helicopters in Utah, where the air is already thin, cannot be understated. It’s quite another thing to fly an airplane when the instruments are unreliable.
Helicopters are just as safe as airplanes, he said, but helicopters require constant input from the pilot, while airplanes can fly straight and level once the pilot takes his hands off the controls.
“Unlike flying a jet at 40,000 feet, you rely heavily on instruments. Helicopters have good instruments, but you don’t rely on them as much. For example, when you’re hovering, you use your peripheral vision the most. ” he said. Cameron Fugal. “But if I had to fly over a ranch with only reliable instruments to fly safely, I wouldn’t do it.”
Whenever the helicopter has an instrumentation or flight problem, such as being thrown off course by an invisible force described as magnets repelling each other, the anomaly is always resolved once the experiment is over. In fact, Cameron Fugal says, teams often verbally announce when an experiment is finished.
as if Something on the farm just wants to remain unidentified..