Going back in time, to where it all began.
Maintenance activities of the Royal Netherlands Navy Aviation Service at De Kooy Air Base in Den Helder.
About Sander van Höevell
In the 1970s and early 1980s, Sander van Höevell was Head of Maintenance at the Naval Aviation Service at De Kooy in Den Helder. After the end of his military career, he founded Jalex B.V. in 1984. At that time, the “uncoated” helicopter turbines were cleaned on Friday afternoons using a solvent-based cleaner. They were then sprayed with a thin oil layer to prevent corrosion in the turbine compressors. This created a significant drawback in emergency situations at sea: helicopters with oil-treated turbines first had to be cleaned before they could be started, delaying response time to vessels in distress or rescue operations.
Mr. van Höevell discovered ZOK 27, a product that could both clean the turbine and provide corrosion protection using the same solution. As a result, in 1984 he became the first representative of ZOK 27 for the Benelux..
The biodegradable nature and corrosion-inhibiting properties of ZOK 27 proved to be a strong combination that is still widely used today by organizations such as the Dutch, Belgian, German, and UK defense forces, General Electric Aero Derivative Gas Turbines, Solar Turbines, Siemens Lincoln, Boeing Germany, KLM, and many others.
In 1992, Skyline Aviation B.V. was established and operations at the “Target Tower” were started by Mr. van Höevell. Initially, a hangar was leased from KLM.
Helicopter operations were conducted at Den Helder Airport, the civil section of Naval Air Base De Kooy. A few years later, land was purchased and the first hangar was built, followed by the construction of a second hangar several years thereafter.
Over Erwin Wiersum
In 1996, Erwin Wiersum was appointed to strengthen the team at Skyline Aviation, focusing on the sales of various products within the Jalex product range, as flight operations were increasingly demanding time and attention. Gas turbine compressor washing was the area that appealed most to Erwin, and consequently received the majority of his focus. Within three years, turnover of ZOK 27 and later ZOK MX products tripled. In 2002, Mr. van Höevell offered Erwin Wiersum the opportunity to become a co‑owner in a newly established company, Skyline Technologies B.V.
Skyline Technologies focuses on ZOK 27 and ZOK MX gas turbine compressor cleaners and expanded its activities to include air filtration products.
In addition, based on established contacts, a cooperation with Turbine Efficiency Ltd., based in Lincoln, United Kingdom, was set up in 2003. The first customers of Turbine Efficiency introduced via Skyline Technologies B.V. were PetroCanada in The Hague (2 × SGT‑100) and Sappi Nijmegen (SGT‑200). Subsequently, maintenance contracts were also established with Stadtwerke Marburg (SGT‑100) and with RWE DEA, operating offshore in the German Wadden Sea at Mittelplate.
At the end of 2012, the cooperation with Turbine Efficiency came to an end, and several months later Skyline Turbine Services B.V. was established. An ISO 9000:2008 quality management system was implemented, later upgraded to ISO 9000:2015, alongside VCA certification.