Director of Maintenance

Originally born and raised in Wisconsin, Mr. Allan Burtness is currently a Virginia resident. He attended a two-year program at Blackhawk Tech, located at Rock County Airport in Wisconsin, graduating in 1976 where he received his Airframe and Power Plant certificate (A&P).

Allan is a lifetime aviation professional with 44 years of helicopter experience as an A&P working for PHI.  During that time he was certified by PHI to maintain Bell 205, Bell 212, Bell 412, Bell 206 series, Bell 214ST, Sikorski S-76 helicopters, and EC-135. Beginning as a flight line junior mechanic in 1976 on Bell 205 and 212 helicopters he advanced to senior, then lead mechanic, working maintenance crews both on the flight line and in the hanger. In gaining that experience he moved to the classroom for 12 years as maintenance instructor teaching approximately 300 mechanics, both customer and PHI, initial and annual recurrent training on Bell medium and heavy ship helicopters.  After his work as maintenance instructor he worked two years as an overhaul hanger supervisor for PHI at the main facility in Lafayette, LA where he was responsible for the complete airframe overhaul of the medium and heavy ship fleet. Then, he moved to the EMS sector with PHI Air Medical where he performed the duties of east coast area maintenance manager for 16 years working in Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky and Florida being responsible for a crew of 22 mechanics and 14 EMS aircraft.

His work has taken him overseas to Saudi Arabia where he spent seven years during the late 1970’s and 1980’s as a PHI helicopter mechanic working the Persian Gulf oil fields. During that time he had the opportunity to act as a hoist operator flying in the Bell 212 and later the Bell 214ST transferring harbor pilots to and from supertankers as they came into port to fill up with oil and then depart. In that role, PHI executed thousands of hoist cycles, servicing all the world’s supertankers safely. During Allan’s extensive aviation experience he is proud to say he has never had a safety violation with the FAA. Now as Director of Maintenance, Allan is responsible for all aspects of the building and maintenance of MissionGO’s UAVs and to protect MissionGo’s FAR 135 certificate.

When Allan is not at work he enjoys spending time with his fantastic wife, Candace, and delving deeper into his passion for all things aviation — full scale and model. In the ’80s and ’90s, he scratch built and flew control line model airplanes, competing in the expert category of aerobatics in sanctioned Gulf Coast AMA events. Today he loves capturing all the action through photography and video.