Hannu Manninen is a co-pilot at national carrier Finnair but he has also come out of retirement again to soar through the air once more from ski-jumping hills as a Nordic combined skier.
Now aged 38, Manninen appears set to compete at his second home world championships in Lahti in the team event today, 20 years after his debut at the worlds 1997 in Trondheim, Norway.
Manninen was a class of his own in the sport twinning ski-jumping and cross-country skiing, winning four straight World Cup titles and a record 48 World Cup competitions.
He has four golds, two silvers and three bronze from worlds and Olympics but eight of those nine medals came in the team event, including a bronze from the 2001 worlds in Lahti.
His only individual medal was a worlds gold from 2007.
That lack of success on his own prompted him to come out of retirement for the first time in 2009 but he failed to make the podium at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and went back into retirement and on to Finnair where a graduated from the flight academy in 2011.
“I enjoy working in my profession a lot,” Manninen recently told national broadcasters YLE as he aims to go beyond continental flights in the future and fly long-haul, as well as becoming the captain.

A strong lure
But the lure of Nordic combined skiing was also still strong for the father of two, and he returned to competition again last year at a national event where he finished fourth.
Competing was partly for promotion reasons but it also gave him the belief that he could return to the big stage once more as part of a Finnish team which does not have the high quality as in the past decade when he was competing alongside Jaakko Tallus and Samppa Lajunen.
He returned to the World Cup on Janaury 7 in Lahti where he had won his last event back in 2010.
He finished 18th and then added 35th and 36th place in Chaux-Neuve, France, a fortnight later.
That wasn’t good enough to be picked for Friday’s individual event at the worlds, but Manninen is to be a part in the team event.
While gold seems out of reach given Germany’s dominance, Manninen believes that he can climb a Lahti worlds podium again after 16 years, and that competing will probably quite emotional for him.
“I fully believe that the chances to medal are realistic,” he told YLE. “Once the races start the vibe will probably be quite nostalgic.”