Luftrettung (air rescue) helicopter landing at a scene call that was visible from his school library in the Berlin suburbs. “I went to the library to study. Outside the building was a helicopter landing. An ADAC yellow rescue helicopter landed near the library and I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. After seeing it, I was so happy all day! So, I made it a life mission to get into that cockpit. I asked the pilot how I could become a pilot to fly that ADAC helicopter and he told me it would be tough because there was only one rescue helicopter in the Berlin area and only three pilot positions. I thought, ‘That’s great because I don’t need three positions, just one!’ So, I focused all my attention on how to become a helicopter pilot.”
Most pilots in Germany hone their skills in the military, so Siebert joined the German Air Force academy in 1993. “I decided, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right by first becoming an officer. That turned out to be a mistake. No one told me when I signed up to fly, that officers spend a lot of time flying desks instead of aircraft.” Nevertheless, the aspiring German military pilot learned to fly under the tutelage of Uncle Sam. Huh?? As a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member, Germany sent prospective pilots to Arizona for aviation screening. “I did well enough to where they gave me a choice, so I chose the helicopter hands down! Then I was sent to Fort Rucker, Alabama, when I was 22 years old, for rotorcraft flight school.” Siebert spent 18 months in the Southeastern state called “The Heart of Dixie.” Yes, the young man was far from his native land, but made the best of it. “I was paired up with a U.S. cadet, Steve Woodburn, at Fort Rucker for my entire time there. He was a really nice guy. I actually spent Christmas at his house on the base; it made a really good holiday,” he says. “In essence, I was trained by the U.S. Army for the German Air Force.”
After his four-year commitment, Siebert was discharged from the German Air Force. He landed in civilian life when information
technology was really taking off.
“I got interested in software
interface design. I thought that there must be an easier way to read all the instruments in an aircraft. I got interested in how the human mind interacts with a lot of information coming at it. Colleges began offering courses in human interface design, so I signed up for that and got a rather unique skill set that became in demand.” Siebert began freelancing his new skills and founded a software company, named Move3D, with friends. Its payroll quickly shot up to 40 employees — and then the dot-com crash occurred. “Our company crashed with the industry, so I turned back to flying civilian helicopters,” he said.
Fleeing dot-com carnage, Siebert returned to his aviation roots in the U.S. with his U.S. Army pilot license, took a checkride, and converted it to an FAA commercial license. “I became a CFI and loved being an instructor at Air Orlando for around a year, then I went to Lance Aviation where I performed a variety of different types of flying; it was great fun!” Following Lance Aviation, Siebert went on to fly air ambulance at CareFlite in Dallas, where he gained experience flying the Agusta AW109. During his time at CareFlite, another operator, Era Helicopters, was introducing the newer, larger Agusta AW139 into its fleet that Siebert really wanted to fly. “So, I stressed my experience in the Agusta 109 aircraft and moved over to Era in 2005 and had good fun with them becoming a captain on the 139. That was really awesome.” Now he was back in the black.
Do you see a pattern here? Whether in good or challenging circumstances, Siebert consistently lands on his skids (or wheels). He partially attributes this pattern to a saying he’s adopted as his life motto: “Whether you think you can or whether you think you cannot — you’re right.” It’s all about having a positive and focused mindset that serves him well, whether he’s doing his daily one- hour hard workout that alternates between CrossFit and running, whether he’s doggedly pursuing a goal to get in the pilot seat, or
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