Scottsdale, Arizona-based Gemini Air Group is the newest Twin Commander Factory Authorized Service Center. The aircraft charter, management, and maintenance company joins a robust network of independently owned and operated facilities that help to make Twin Commander support the best in the legacy aircraft market. Opened in 1997 by pilot and aviation executive Tim Carpay, Gemini has expanded in recent years from charter and aircraft management to a large presence on the Scottsdale Airport that includes maintenance, overhaul, avionics, and more. With 60,000 square feet of hangar space and 30 employees, Gemini has the experience, knowledge, and support necessary to be welcomed into the fold of Twin Commander-authorized service centers. According to Carpay, expanding into maintenance was a way to…

Peru boasts the tenth highest commercial airport in the world, and four of the top 20. The country has beautiful mountains, lush rainforests, busy cities, and impossibly remote regions. It’s a challenging operating environment for any airplane, but one Twin Commander is thriving in this dynamic place. The Peruvian Air Force operates a 1971 690B, serial number 11391. The airplane was privately owned, but was seized in a clandestine operation against drug traffickers in 1993. Since 1997 the Air Force has put it to work doing everything from more anti-narcotic missions to surveillance and VIP transport. Lieutenant Colonel Alfredo Quiñones Belevan has been in Peru’s Air Force since 2003, and has been flying the Twin Commander since 2014. “It is…

Twin Commander Owner John Swift Is Always On the Go. They say print is dead. Clearly they haven’t met John Swift.  Swift is the third-generation owner of the John S. Swift Co., a multiservice printing company located outside Chicago, with offices and operations around the world. The company was started in 1912 by Swift’s grandfather. His father took over earlier in the twentieth century, and Swift has been at the helm since 1975. Swift has presided over a company in an industry that has changed more in the last 20 years than it had in the previous 300. In that time publishing has gone from quintessential Manhattan three-martini lunches to a lean global manufacturing business where only the strong survive.…

John Hummer says he’s on his third life. The first was as a professional basketball player, then as a pioneering venture capitalist, and now as a retiree who gets to fly around in his cherry 1985 Model 1000 Twin Commander. Given the airplane and how he uses it, it seems like Hummer is having as much success in his third life as he did the first two. Hummer is perhaps best known for his first life, that of professional basketball player. He grew up in Arlington, Virginia, and excelled as a high school athlete. That success took him to Princeton, where he is still regarded as one of the best players in the school’s illustrious basketball tradition. He was the…