Spike and Suzy and Suzy happen in real countries all over the world, with Belgium (their home country) as main focus for many stories. While in the early stories large distances were usually traveled using the fictitious "Gyronef", an experimental helicopter devised by professor Barabas, starting from the 1960s all air travel is provided by the Dutch national airline KLM, making it an early and prominent example of product placement in European comics. Vandersteen chose KLM over the Belgian national airline SABENA because of his friendship with Ron Winderink, PR manager at KLM. Willy Vandersteen created "Suske en Wiske", beginning publication in "De
Sabena Flight Academy operation. In 2004, the school was sold to two former managers of Sabena and became the Sabena Flight Academy. It was finally absorbed in 2008 by the Canadian group CAE. The acquisition of SFA by CAE was conducted as part of a larger program to complete a global training network: the CAE Global Academy. The school has two subsidiaries: To gain a place on the course it's necessary to complete an assessment at Sabena Flight Academy. The assessment is designed to test candidates: If successful in completing the assessment to the necessary standard then applicants are welcomed to join the