Jens Vanhoof likely has one of the most unique gigs among Beechcraft King Air pilots. The 38-year-old Belgian alternates between flying in circles for hours at a time and crossing the globe on ferry flights – all in support of bringing major sporting events to worldwide television audiences.
WorldLinX operates two B200 aircraft with television-relay configurations from its base in Antwerp, Belgium. They provide long-range wireless transmissions for television facility companies that have been hired by the television networks with broadcasting rights to the events, mainly sporting events such as auto rallies, cycling, sailing, cross-country skiing and marathons.
television-relay process (middle), which includes the King Airs flying circles over sports competition areas (right).
“We operate our King Airs exclusively as a relay in live television broadcasting. About 99% of the business is sporting events where you either need to cover a big area or a smaller area that constantly changes, like cycling races that can go on for 80 miles. In these cases, you can’t physically pull cables to a broadcast truck and putting antennas next to the stages is logistically impossible. That’s not the case for tennis or hockey games or even Formula One races, where no relay is needed,” Vanhoof said during an interview from Chile, where he’d landed after ferrying a B200 for six days from Belgium to help broadcast the Rally Chile round of the World Rally Championship.
WorldLinX owns OO-ASL, a 1984 Model B200C, and OO-LET, a 1994 B200. They operate on the air operator certificate of ASL Group out of Antwerp International Airport (EBAW). Both aircraft have extra antennas mounted, the most obvious of which are housed in the fuselage belly pods of the aircraft as well as extendable transmission arms.
“We’ve modified the Superpod 60 from Commuter Air Technology to be suitable for radio transmission,” Vanhoof said. “This means that all the metal has been removed, so the pods are no longer suitable for actual cargo loads.”
The cabins look quite different, too. A few passenger seats remain though most of the space is filled with 
tech equipment that turns the King Air into a flying station, broadcasting directly to the ground station. A single operator works the equipment during an event – EASA calls the position a task specialist. Their role is to reconfigure the signals constantly as the event develops. In a cycling race, for example, the task specialist monitors whether all the cyclists are close together or if a few competitors are some distance ahead of the pack. They stay in contact with filming teams on camera motorbikes and in helicopters, and they monitor and adjust radio and video signals to ensure all is optimal for the re-broadcasting to the broadcast truck.
Changing perspectives on the King Air
As the chief technology officer for WorldLinX, Vanhoof is responsible for all King Air operations. He is also a pilot for the company after working his way up from warehouse assistant after graduating from broadcast school in 2007 to operating the equipment in the plane during relay flights.
“I come from a television background and not so much from an aviation perspective,” Vanhoof said. “From 2008 until 2015, I spent several thousand hours in the B200 as the operator sitting in the back.”
He started the journey to become a pilot in 2015 after company leadership asked him to learn to fly. WorldLinX was doing more productions outside of Europe, and at the same time EASA’s duty and rest time regulations were becoming more structured.
“Sometimes we would have to fly in other crew members via airliner just to fly two or three flights to give the other crew members the required rest, especially when they’d flown many hours just getting to the event location,” Vanhoof said. “The idea was that if I were already on-site and a pilot, maybe I could do those flights. The assumption was that I might be able to combine the ‘operator’ and ‘pilot’ jobs, which I realized would be impossible once I started progressing through flight school. Still, we knew it would benefit the company to have a technical manager who knows about broadcasting and has experience from the flight deck.”
WorldLinX.
He earned his private pilot license in 2016 then his commercial pilot license and type rating in the B200 in 2018. In six years, he’s amassed a little more than 2,900 hours, including nearly 2,700 in the B200.
“I recently started the journey to become a type rating instructor on the King Air BE90/99/100/200,” he said. “The training program in Farnborough was recently retired, and we have been working on a solution for recurrent training and initial training for new pilots. With this new rating, I hope to assist in keeping our pilots current. I’m very excited to get yet another new perspective on the King Air.”
WorldLinX operates the aircraft multi-pilot and uses a fixed team of eight pilots who are all contract aside from Vanhoof. They fly the B200s about 1,200 hours a year combined.
“OO-ASL was the company’s only aircraft between 2008-2012. For the London 2012 Summer Olympics we bought OO-LET as a backup. These days, both planes are used all the time for relay work only,” Vanhoof said. “The business is expanding with more and more events requiring both aircraft at the same time, which leaves us without in-house spares in case of technical failures. We might add additional aircraft to the fleet in the future.”
A unique mission
There are just a few operators in this specific segment of the market, Vanhoof said, adding that WorldLinX collaborates with other companies when more lift is needed. With events scattered across the globe – Argentina, Chile, Italy, Kenya, New Zealand, Spain and the United States, to name a few – a big part of meeting demand is getting the Belgium-based King Airs to event sites.
“There is quite a bit of experience and expertise that goes into these productions, both on the aeronautical side and the broadcast side,” Vanhoof said. “Often the convenience of having our own aircraft and pilots outweighs the cost of transferring the aircraft to these remote locations for the client.”
Vanhoof said he’s seen operators use Pilatus PC-12, Piper PA-31 and Britten-Norman BN-2 aircraft for the mission, though most use at least one King Air because of their reliability.
“The King Air is great for this specialized use for a number of reasons,” he said. “You absolutely need an aircraft that can fly 99% of the time. We can fly virtually in any weather condition. The payload handles the broadcast equipment, which tends to be heavy. We can fly up to FL280 – we are non-RVSM so we can’t go to the service ceiling of FL350. Another thing is the autonomy of the aircraft, where we can usually provide six to seven hours of flight time, depending on the weight of the equipment. We can fly it slow when we need to – so our turn radius is small and we can stay close to the motorbikes/cars/helicopters/ski scooters/sailboats – and fast enough so we can efficiently position the aircraft virtually anywhere in the world.”
The Life of a Television Relay Pilot
Jens Vanhoof (left) provided an account of one trip in WorldLinX’s 1984 King Air B200C (OO-ASL) with fellow pilot Thieu Hendriks (right). The two traveled from Antwerp, Belgium, to Auckland, New Zealand, in 2022 for Rally New Zealand. The four-day auto racing event consisted of 17 special stages over gravel roads running through forests and along the coastline. Competitors covered nearly 174 miles in New Zealand, one of 13 rounds of that year’s World Rally Championship.
Day 1 (Tuesday): Thieu and I flew out of Brussels Airport (EBBR) to Lyon, France (LFLL). We took an Uber to Grenoble Alpes–Isère Airport (LFLS), where our King Air, OO-ASL, had just received Phase 3 maintenance at Blue Aero.
Our task specialist, Jean-Yves Delamaire, arrived and we loaded our luggage and equipment. We thoroughly inspected the aircraft, including hot items and all the lights. Avionics were updated for the Middle East and the Far East. We also tested the satellite phone that we had with us.
We flew OO-ASL to Athens International Airport (LGAV). After a long wait for fuel with Goldair Handling, we were off to the Grand Hyatt hotel in the city center. It was late; we ate quickly and got a few salads for the next day.
Day 2 (Wednesday): After a half-hour waiting for the handler, we were on to Egypt (HEGN), where we had a very fast refuel, and then on to Bahrain (OBBI) and Muscat (OOMS) in Oman. We cleared customs and proceeded to the Novotel hotel.
Day 3 (Thursday): We flew to Ahmedabad, India (VAAH), where we had a team of nearly 10 men refueling OO-ASL on arrival. We then went to the terminal to process passports, photos and fingerprints, explain our reason for traveling and file a form indicating how many valuables we had. Food and drinks were provided during the well-organized procedure, which still took nearly 1.5 hours. They scanned our luggage while we were at the terminal and required photos of fuel gauges.
We then flew to Kolkata (VECC), where we had to repeat customs forms to “depart faster the next day.” They applied many paper stickers on the door of OO-ASL, which were difficult to remove. Our taxi to the Holiday Inn was hectic with a continuous stream of honking cars and mopeds. Thieu spit fire after eating spicy beans and I spit fire from the soup on the hotel’s buffet before they made a mild mix for us to enjoy.
Day 4 (Friday): Even with yesterday’s customs paperwork it still took about an hour before we could depart. Everyone was friendly and eventually we left for Bangkok, Thailand (VTBD).
On to Singapore (WSSL), which has a nice approach, Thieu went to the hotel while I waited about 45 minutes for fuel. We ate at the hotel, Ibis Styles, then went to Bar 12. It’s close to the hotel, and we received a ticket for a complimentary glass of wine that we didn’t want to waste.
Day 5 (Saturday): It was the first time we experienced a little rain, but it was still very warm (it had been above 30 degrees Celsius for the whole trip). Our flight to Bali (WADD) went smoothly; handling took pictures of our passing gates and we didn’t have to do anything else. There is a gigantic Buddha statue in the city, a few kilometers from where we were (it is known as the Garuda Wisnu Kencana statue). We removed all the garbage from the plane and headed to Darwin, Australia (YPDN).
We were tired on arrival at YPDN, and it was already night. The jet lag was starting to play tricks on us. The ILS was down, and work was being done on the runway. We made a few stupid mistakes – especially me with ATC. In one clearance I talked about a visual, an ILS and a localiser approach – but we landed without any problems.
We remembered from our last visit to YPDN that we had to spray insecticide in the cabin before opening the door, and because we didn’t have any, we needed to report this to ATC 30 minutes before landing. After landing, they passed us the spray can through the window. We sprayed for 10 seconds and waited a few minutes for them to give us a signal. We filled in a passenger arrival card for customs. They were not interested in our transit visa, which took a long time to apply for. Pearl Aviation pulled the plane aside and took us to the hotel they had booked for us. We drank a beer, ate and went to sleep.
Day 6 (Sunday): It was the only free day for our 36-hour rest and maximum duty of seven consecutive days. We visited a military museum and had a pint with the pokies (electronic poker machines).
Day 7 (Monday): A concrete mixer pouring a new swimming pool under his window awakens Thieu at 5 a.m. Pearl Aviation picked us up, and because the plane had already been refueled, we could leave immediately for the mining town of Mount Isa (YBMA), where we would make a quick fuel stop. The field was uncontrolled, so we stayed in touch with Brisbane Center down to the ground. Onward to Gold Coast (YBCG), where Platinum Business Aviation Centre was the handler. They forgot to arrange a hotel and everything was full due to school holidays. Eventually, we found a hotel about 20 minutes away. It was a crowded tourist hotel but chic. We ate on the terrace and bought lunch for the next day.
Day 8 (Tuesday): Our final leg took us 1,200 nautical miles to New Zealand (NZAA). We had 60-knot tailwinds and made the crossing in one go. We calculated the point of no return, double-checked the aircraft and the oil and added Prist. At 400 feet, we made a right turn and were over water within a minute. An ICAO requirement was we must have HF radios, but we only had VHF. We told Brisbane Center, exchanged telephone numbers (our satellite phone) and did a test interview, which worked reasonably well. We were told we might have to continue from the middle VFR, but in the end we could stay IFR. We were advised that Jetstar Airways flight 131 followed a parallel route and that we could share position reports through them.
We arrived in New Zealand without any problems, and we taxied to the corporate terminal using Air Center One handlers. We had to disinfect the cabin for five seconds with the surplus of our insecticide and wait a few minutes (no food was allowed on board for this leg). Customs clearance was remote, so we didn’t see anyone directly. Our luggage was X-rayed, and we filled in another passenger arrival card before heading to our hotel. It was 18 degrees Celsius and rainy.
Day 9 (Wednesday): Thieu stayed in the hotel while Jean-Yves and I completed the technical installation on OO-ASL once we were on-site. This involved connecting cable, programming frequencies, and testing to ensure everything was ready for broadcasting.
Day 10 (Thursday): We prepared for the start of the rally race with the shakedown, a short, designated test stage when competitors check their car’s setup and functionality. We spent the afternoon sightseeing, watching a harness jump at the 328-meter-high Sky Tower in Auckland’s city center and walking along the harbor. The rally began that evening, but the King Air wasn’t needed because production could be done with local antennas in the short Stage 1 loop.
Over the next four days, we flew nearly 30 hours to ensure the World Rally Championship audience could enjoy live images of all stages during the New Zealand rally. We returned to Belgium on a commercial airliner on Monday because we had almost reached our legal maximum duty period over 28 days. Another two-pilot crew moved the aircraft to Nagoya, Japan – which took just over 30 hours across four days – so that the King Air is ready to go two weeks later for Rally Japan, the final round of 2022’s WRC.