Into the skies with MAN

Martin Kroos works full-time in fleet management at the forwarding company Greiwing logistics for you GmbH, but he is also drawn to flying high with a MAN F2000 18.410 in his second job with his own aviation company, AIRlebnis Event.

Travelling is one of the best things in the world for Martin Kroos– in two respects: he loves using his MAN F2000 18.410 to transport the equipment for his flights in a hot-air balloon. ‘We love being on the road with our equipment in unusual places,’ the 51-year-old explains enthusiastically. The passenger trips that he offers with his company AIRlebnis Event go far beyond the Münster region, for example to Lapland, and soon the Sahara.

That’s where it all began for Martin 20 years ago, ballooning with a team in the Sahara. ‘At that time we had, among other vehicles, an old THW Magirus Deutz with all-wheel drive. Driving through the dunes with it was such a great experience that I just knew I had to have something like that myself,’ he remembers. In the years that followed, he worked in hot-air balloons full-time for a period, then later as a second job. ‘Having a truck just for fun wasn’t an option at the time,’ he says. About three years ago, he toyed with the idea of building an all-wheel drive motorhome for long-distance expeditions to travel independently around the world with after retirement. ‘But waiting ten years for an all-wheel-drive truck was too long for me.’ This gave rise to the idea of buying a truck with a crew cab and using it at ballooning events in the Sahara, Lapland and other routes over the next ten years. Since then, the MAN F2000 18.410 has been part of the AIRlebnis Event team.

‘In February, we travelled to Finnish Lapland with the MAN for the first time. It was a great experience taking the vehicle to a place where the temperature drops as low as minus 35 degrees,’ says Martin. Despite that, he says, the vehicle ran flawlessly and pleasantly surprised the whole team.

Even though there are more modern truck models available, such as the new-generation MAN, which Martin is familiar with from his work with the forwarding company in Greven, Westphalia, it was a conscious decision to choose the MAN F2000 for his ballooning company: ‘For our purposes, the simpler technology is an advantage,’ he says. He also likes the design of his lion, for which he still has big plans, he explains: ‘The plan is to travel to the Sahara this autumn to go ballooning there and to get a better idea of how the truck handles the sand.’ We hope the team has a lot of fun on the dunes and in the air and look forward to pictures of the first desert adventure with Martin’s MAN F2000.