Menu
Delivery flight
Andy Nielsen poses in McCook near the airplane he is delivering to a California customer for the Cirrus aircraft company of Duluth, Minn. Nielsen, 26, works for UND Aerospace, which provides flight training services for the company. The aircraft started as a homebuilt design, but is now being manufactured at a rate of 12 a week. It features a "glass" computer control panel, a 310-hp, 6 cylinder Continental engine and can cruise at 200 mph for more than 1,000 miles. Made of fiberglass and carbon fiber composite, it also carries a parachute to lower the entire airplane safely to the ground in the event of an emergency. Have to have one? That'll be $444,000, please. Andy has flown about 1,900 hours over the past five years, and caught the flying bug from his dad, Dr. Mike Nielsen, a McCook chiropractor who has been flying since 1974.