SEPTEMBER 2025
The Patrician
The Victoria Flying Club ~ Aviation Excellence Since 1946
JOHN ADDISON'S "THE CONTRACTOR" IN THIS ISSUE: ALSO : PART TWO OF HOW TO INCREASE YOUR FLYING SKILL & COMPETENCY WITH THE PROFESSIONAL PILOT AND DEREK MELTON'S ADVENTURES FLYING IN FRANCE
T he P atrician
“T
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
ACTING PRESIDENT Colin Williamson
SECRETARY Joey Martin
TREASURER Reg Smith
DIRECTORS Paul Rutten
Glen Rippon
Don Devenney Al Johnston
GENERAL MANAGER Mike Schlievert
NEWS Around the Club
FROM THE EDITOR:
Hello September! Autumn came in with a cool breeze on September 1st, and I can't be happier to say goodbye to the summer heat. This issue has a ton of great content in it. Dane Campbell provided a stunning cover photo, David Gagliardi returns with another installment of The Professional Pilot, former flight instructor John Addison shares a story, and there's a throwback from 2021 about Derek Melton's adventures of flying in France.
Oh, and speaking of autumn: do you have any autumnal or Halloween stories, pictures, or events to share? Send everything you have to vfcpatrician@gmail.com and we'll take it from there. Until next time!
—Kelly, Editor of the Patrician
VOLUNTEERS WANTED FOR MOTORCYCLE TOY RUN ON SEPT 28
We’re excited to host our annual Motorcycle Toy Run This tradition has helped bring toys to kids in need during the holiday season for over 5 years.
We need volunteers from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM to help with setup and a number of tasks to help make the run a success! In return, you'll receive a FREE BBQ MEAL and recognition in the Patrician for your service to the club and community!
The Toy Run runs on Sunday, September 28th from 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM at the VFC's main ramp.
Interested? Contact Marcel at: marcelpoland@flyvfc.com
CUPE FLIGHT ATTENDANT STRIKE CONTINUES; CALLS FOR FEDERAL ACTION
CUPE is calling for government intervention to stop airlines from relying on unpaid labor from flight attendants on behalf of their more than 20,000 members. A rally is planned at Capitol Hill on September 16th, which will hopefully gain the support of both the public and policy makers as the union pushes for a swift end to unpaid work in the flight industry. This follows in the wake of the Air Canada labour dispute that revealed what some sources call an "out dated and exploitative pay structure" and that Canada's airline industry is lagging behind in fair compensation.
BOEING INVESTS IN BC AEROSPACE AND DEFENSE SECTOR
At this year's Abbotsford Air show, Boeing showcased its 345 million CAD investment in BC aerospace and defense. Part of this investment includes these the P-8A ITB Program, which, according to an independent study by the Ottawa-based Doyletech Corporation, will add about 3,000 jobs and $358 million to Canada's economy every year for the next 10 years.
“Let’s get one thing straight. There’s a big difference between a pilot and an aviator. One is a technician; the other is an artist in love with flight."
–Elrey Borge Jeppesen
FIRST SOLOS
"Without disruption of air traffic, these fearless, forthright, indomitable and courageous individuals did venture into the wild blue yonder in flying machines.
Furthermore, these skillful individuals did safely land said flying machines at Victoria International Airport, incurring no significant damage to self or machine, thus completing first solo flights."
THIS ISSUE WE CELEBRATE THE FIRST SOLOS OF THESE PILOTS:
Sergii Vozniak
Henrik Pedersen
Fraser Tuck
Bruce Cousins
Gael Cruz Martinez
Walker Welsh
Roger Zala
Kent Pondeville
Paul Cortens
CJ McNeil
Noah Di Battista
Mel is now officially a commercial pilot!
We want your first solo or achievement in the Patrician! Send your photos to vfcpatrician@gmail.com or tag us on Instagram!
Heather Gibb is officially a commercial pilot! With instructor Laura Van Buskirk
Heather and instructor Paul Houlston
MEMBER ACHIEVEMENTS
PPL WRITTEN TEST
Aiden Walters
Jordan Brockhurst
Chao Fu (Chapman) Chen
Walter Rojo Flores
PPL FLIGHT TEST
Peter Blencowe
Matthew Durant
Nelson Currie
Dominik Opatril
Bhagpreet Kaur
Tim Henderson
Benjamin Wolfe
Chapman Chen
Miko Tsares
Tristan Smith
Desire Karanja
Emily Whitelaw
Jordan Brockhurst
Walter Rojo Flores
Clara Johnson
GROUP 1 INSTRUMENT RATING
Gavin Johansen
CPL FLIGHT TEST
Stephanie Jackson
Oscar Morrison
Quinn Ferris
Felix Schnur
Simon Miyashita
Tristan Belcourt
Laine Armstrong
Dominic Neilson
Iliya Pavlovic
Heather Belecky
Trevor Birrell
MULT-ENGINE RATING
Zackary Hancock
Cole Morris
Kevin Transchel
CLASS 4 INSTRUCTOR RATING
Samuel Godsell
INRAT WRITTEN EXAM
Iliya Pavlovic
WELCOME NEW VFC MEMBERS
Cameron Johnston
Maximus Morgan
Callum Skinner
Nerrie Shienna Velasco
Barry Van Schaik
John Paterson
Paolo Octavio
Shrijan Paudel
Lawrence Lewis
Conor Loughnane
Nash Van Giesen
Joshua Stein
Richard Cohen
Priya Pal
Vanessa Waugh
Ramandeep Kaur
Abhishek Pradhan
Logan Cooper
Todd Wilson
Hanson Chan
Gregory Muenzer
Brie Anderson
Warwick Green
Jeremy Smith
Pierre Grignon
Spencer Hall
Geoffrey Hickman
Norman Jeske
Jane Pico Villamizar
Nurgazy Jumataev
Warrick Boustred
Michael Shawn Sauer
Donald Read
Loch Walker
Sidney Wittman
Oscar Ross
Callum Sutherland
Matthew Spalding
Oliver Myers
Coalton Burton
Karl Russell
Corbin King
Guido Salazar
Kaleb Bagrowicz
Matthew Dooling
Aaron Macluskie
Declan Funnell
Dan MacKenzie
VFC MENTOR PROGRAM
Do you want other pilots to fly with, split flight cost, share knowledge, or get help getting to a new airport for the first time? Find potential mentors and their resumes posted on the Mentors bulletin board beside the Dispatch counter. Contact details are on each mentor's resume or you can email mentors@flyvfc. com for more information.
Interested in becoming a mentor? There's always room for more experienced pilots! Send an email to mentors@flyvfc.com for more information on how to join up!
GROUND SCHOOL SCHEDULE
PRIVATE PILOT LICENCE GROUND SCHOOL
PPL #25-10: AUGUST 10, 2025 TO OCTOBER 26, 2025
Sundays (09:00 - 16:00)
Instructor: Neil Keating (Zoom attendance possible by arrangement)
COMMERCIAL PILOT LICENCE GROUND SCHOOL
CPL: APRIL 5, 2025 TO AUGUST 2, 2025
Saturdays (09:00 - 16:00)
Instructor: Ken Kosik, Ben Holden, and Neil Keating
Individual scheduling requests are available for Private Pilot Licence, Commercial Pilot Licence, Mountain Awareness Training (MTA), Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (Drone) Courses (RPAS) by request.
Individual tutoring is also available for PPL and CPL upon request.
Confirm your attendance with Neil Keating on cell at 204-291-9667 and VFC Operations (Russell) at 250-656-2833.
PARKING AVAILABLE!
Interested in prime paved parking spaces for your aircraft? Good News: there are spots available!
Secure, pull-in/pull-out, easy access.
Call Dispatch at 250-656-2833 to arrange a spot or to get on the waitlist for hangar spaces!
THE
PROFESSIONAL
PILOT
by David Gagliardi
“‘Professionalism’ is commonly understood as an individual’s adherence to a set of standards, code of conduct or collection of qualities that characterize accepted practice within a particular area of activity.” -Universities UK et al. 2004
INCREASING FLYING SKILL & COMPETENCIES PART 2
Professional pilots embody the attributes in the definition above. Being a professional pilot has nothing to do with what license you hold, it is ultimately about the attitude with which you approach flying. This article is the twelfth in a series that will examine aspects of piloting light aircraft to a professional standard.
There are 3 interrelated ratings that will move a proficient Private Pilot to the next level, the Commercial Pilot License, the Instrument rating, and the Multi Engine Rating. The follow on additional step would the Instructor Rating.
You may ask what the purpose of a Commercial Pilot License is, if a pilot has no intention of flying commercially?
I asked that exact question when I was a 300 hour Private Pilot who had been licensed for 7 years. The answer that the then CFI gave me still resonates. He said that there is no magic to the Commercial Pilots course, it mostly consists of the PPL syllabus but to a higher standard and enough instrument and radio navigation aid training so that you will be better prepared for any challenging conditions whether that could be for example a real short or soft runway, marginal VFR, or flight
planning a long flight. Substitute GPS for radio navigation aids and that description still holds true. I took the training with no intention of pursuing a flying career, only to be a better pilot, and that was the result.
After completing the CPL course and doing decently well at it, it was suggested that I should do an instructor rating with the idea I could do some part time instruction at the club. As it turned out when I was in the air doing my Instructor flight test with a Transport Canada Inspector, one of the VFC instructors announced he was quitting to go to another job. On successful completion of my flight
Test I was offered a full time position as a club instructor and thus began my
accidental commercial flying career. However if I never instructed one hour I would have had no regrets doing the Instructor rating. The best way to truly know a skill is to be able to teach it. I have every fixed wing License and Rating possible, except for Cruise Relief Pilot, and I can say unequivocally the Instructor Rating was the hardest one.
I understand that the Instructor rating is not for everyone but if you are looking for a challenging but rewarding way to move up to the next level of flying proficiency than I would suggest the Group 3 (i.e. Single Engine Airplanes). IFR flying demands a non optional level of flying precision that will definitely benefit your VFR flying. As an added advantage the instrument
The Professional Pilot
rating and night rating will satisfy about two thirds of the commercial pilot license requirements so that, that next step is now relatively small. Conversely the CPL course will get you half way to the Instrument rating hence my comment that the Ratings were interrelated.
Finally there is the Multi Engine Rating. This is the introduction to faster more complicated airplanes. It is good experience but the downside is the per hour cost for the training is almost twice what a club single engine airplane costs and very few multi engine airplanes are available for rent.
Nevertheless it is still valuable and challenging training.
The preamble to the Professional Pilot series is the same for every article and makes the very important point that professionalism is first and foremost is the desire to work towards being the best pilot you can be. What additional training any particular pilot should take is a personal decision, however the value of any additional license or rating is not the sticker in your License Booklet; it should be the satisfaction of achieving and maintaining a higher level of flying proficiency.
"Hey John,
we need you to … ” greets me as I walk into the Cargolux Airlines dispatch office; it’s never “Hey John, how are you today?” or “Hey John, are you up for a beer this evening?”
Their “Hey, John ...” is invariably a precursor to something like “We’ve got these changes for you…” or “We need you to do this flight …” followed by a brief description of some oddball flight that their permanent pilot staff had obviously all turned down.
My airline career had started a couple of years earlier, in
1988 with Wardair Canada who trained me to fly their Boeing 747s, taking winter-weary Canadians to Hawaiian and Caribbean sunshine during the winter and to Europe for the summer months. When being interviewed for the job, I had asked which aircraft I was to fly, and Doug McKinley, their director of flight operations, told me that it would be either the Airbus A300 or the Boeing 747. “What’s an Airbus?” I asked, so the 747 it was. In retrospect, great question!
After a year or so, Wardair was gobbled up by a bigger fish in the form of Canadian Airlines and I found myself with a company seniority
that would give me no more than a 2nd officer position for the rest of my airline career. That didn’t seem like much of an option, so I answered an advertisement I found pinned to the ops room notice board, left Canada and took up a copilot contract with Cargolux, a predominantly cargo airline based in Luxembourg. Within a year or so I was upgraded to a Captain’s position on the 747 and so began my career as an expat contract 747 pilot; just a few hundred of us worldwide, far from pensions, benefits, and the norms of a civilised life; but it could pay extremely well, even tax free when managed judiciously.
THE CONTRACTOR
BY JOHN ADDISON
Former VFC Instructor
The time is the late 1980’s, long before the advent of the low-cost carriers we are familiar with today. The legacy airlines treated their flight crews extremely well, and on some carriers, the service was legendary. In the 1970’s, for example, Air India’s service standards were so high that Singapore, Cathay, Thai and other East Asian carriers used Air India as their go-to model for excellence. “Always aim at perfection, for only then will you achieve excellence” was JRD Tata’s favourite axiom. So, being able to fly around the world first class on airlines celebrated for their service, and choosing flights with extended layovers in exotic destinations, I set out to achieve my aim of becoming the quintessential tourist.
So here I am in 1989 working in Luxembourg on contract for Cargolux, a Boeing 747200 freight carrier which had inherited a pair of old 747-100 passenger aircraft
that they used for charter flights. United had some similar old 747s, three, I think, that they operated with five hundred plus passengers, lots of newlyweds, between Tokyo and Honolulu. The “honeymoon” run, they called it. These aircraft were so ancient and beaten up that the cabin crew referred to them as the “twisted sisters”; I mention this only because the Cargolux -100 series 747’s clearly came from the same stable; to be flown with a delicate touch. Flying the 747 becomes easier with each iteration owing to continual technical advances and increased power, but some of those older 747-100s could be a tad challenging at times. For example, on arrival at work an hour before take-off I might find that the aircraft had two different engine types, an intermix of Pratt & Whitney JT9D-3A and -7. There is a 2,000lb thrust difference between the two engines, but the airline did, thankfully, at least put the same engines on symmetrical
pylons so we had an even push when applying power for take-off. Occasionally, to get more power for take-off, I might discover an active water injection system. By using 5,000lbs of water to cool combustion, an extra 6,000lbs thrust could be generated for take-off. As these systems were rarely used, they frequently failed which, while never resulting in anything life-threatening, resulted in an alarmingly expletive-laden take-off ! Once, I even found engine intermix with water injection on just 2 engines. The take-off roll of these early 747’s could well exceed a minute when hot and heavy, and on one such take-off to the south-west from Damascus in the middle of a very hot night the flight engineer was having a terrible time trying to set take-off power at their various settings, so when I shouted at him to stop messing about and give me power so that we might clear the Golan Heights, he simply shoved all the power levers forward an
inch or so. That seemed to do the trick, but had we a photo of the engine temperatures, or conducted a borescope check after landing, I’m sure some of the engines would have needed changing. As they say … “Pratt & Whitney –Dependable Engines”
Cargolux protected their permanent staff by employing several contract crews in case layoffs were needed, and to do the work the regular crews didn’t want to do, such as -100 passenger charter flights. As an example, with the outbreak of the first Gulf war I found myself scheduled to fly a -200 freighter on a very popular “up and down” to Dubai, a simple three-day trip I would never usually see. Asking why I was to fly such an easy flight, I was told that Dubai was now considered a war zone which would require that the company pay significantly higher insurance premiums for their permanent staff. Not me though, I was just uninsured cannon fodder.
I was learning about the downside of being a contract pilot.
So, back to that “Hey, John!.” Because of my Wardair experience on the 747-100 I found myself predominantly flying Cargolux’s old “twisted sisters” on all sorts of oddball trips. Today, instead of the scheduled deadhead to Manchester to operate a
charter taking the fish and chip crowd on a cheap British holiday package to Santo Domingo, I was told I was to spend a couple of weeks in Paris operating one of our -100’s for Air France. Well, that didn’t sound so bad so off I happily went. Air France was an eye-opener; this was the anthesis of a “nofrills” airline. I was treated like a king: a room at a fancy downtown Paris hotel was provided, I didn’t have to check out when away flying, and all expenses at the hotel were picked up by Air France including the restaurant. The route structure on offer was tantalizing too; France’s overseas territories, “départements d'outre-mer”, included Réunion close by Mauritius in the south Indian Ocean as well as Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean so, with Northern Europe’s miserable winter closing in there seemed to be no downside. Never mind that I was having fun flying the world’s finest flying machine, these trips were fitting in perfectly with my tourist ambitions. France’s overseas territories are domestic flights, so no package tourists or customs to worry about. Based at Charles de Gaulle, our aircraft were treated as Air France aircraft with Air France servicing, Air France catering, and Air France cabin crew. Just us three strangers
up front. I learned later that for some reason, the cabin crew did not get on well with their own Air France pilots, but they seemed to have no problems with us. I spoke schoolboy French and hoped it would be good enough to get by. This was November, and after three delightful weeks of sunny Caribbean trips I was expecting to be called home, but an Air France dispatcher asked if I would be available for their East Africa, Réunion and Mauritius flights. He had obviously already cleared it with Cargolux, so I guess he wasn’t really asking, just being polite. More sunny days! I’ll describe one of these flights; typical of the many which were, without doubt, the most memorable of my airline experiences. The trip scheduled was a 21-day affair from Paris with the same crew throughout. The cabin crew, I discovered, flew only to East Africa and the Indian Ocean so were intimately familiar with all of the destinations; where to visit, what to eat, and so on. Our routing for the three weeks would take us from Paris to Lyon, then Djibouti, Kilimanjaro, Moroni, Mauritius, Réunion, the Seychelles, Jeddah, Dhahran and finally back to Paris with layovers in Djibouti, Réunion, the Seychelles, Jeddah, Dhahran and 6 days in Mauritius. 5 days actually flying an aeroplane and 17
sitting around on layover. This was going to be tough to take!
This being years before GPS and the like, I was used to suitcases full of Jeppeson binders containing all the world’s maps and charts. To carry it all, the paper was made extremely thin and flimsy with the aeronautical information printed in an impossibly small size 4 font. Air France, however, gave us a binder with just the charts we would need for the trip. These were Air France generated specifically for their 747s and printed on regular 8 ½ x 11” stock with size 10 font. I remarked on how wonderful this was, and the dispatcher replied that when Air France pilots were senior enough to fly the 747, they could no longer read the small Jeppeson print. How thoughtful. As we were newcomers to this route, the entire cabin crew was waiting to meet and introduce themselves to us before taking the crew bus to the aircraft for the first leg to Lyon. On the short drive out to the aircraft, a cute cabin attendant plonks herself down next to me saying “Bonsoir, m’sieu, je m’appelle Corrinne et nos avons trois semaines ensemble, non ?” (Hello, I’m Corrinne and we’re together for 3 weeks…) I wasn’t immediately sure if I should admit to speaking some French, but then one
shouldn’t appear churlish, should one ? At this point I should introduce the other cockpit crew members. I hadn’t met either of them before, so was looking forward to seeing how we would get on together. The flight engineer was Luxembourgish, and although quite quiet, seemed very pleasant and quite keen on the idea of touring the Indian Ocean: he also spoke fluent French, of course. The co-pilot was the polar opposite, Chuck, from Texas. Chuck was still pissed that the Mexicans had overrun the Alamo 150 years earlier and carried this chip for all to see. He made it clear that he did not wish to be in Paris, in France, or even Europe, but wanted to go home to the States (who, it seems, didn’t want him). He was in his 50’s, highly experienced and had, he said, worked for multiple airlines in the US. I was to learn, in the coming weeks that there was obviously good reason why Chuck was no longer working for multiple airlines in the US, why he was still a co-pilot, and why Cargolux was seemingly sending him as far away from Luxembourg as they could. Anyway, here is Chuck - episode 1: As is usual, while we were in the cockpit preparing for flight, the purser popped in to ask, “what’s the weather like, how long, how high?” etc,
whereupon Chuck yelled at her to get the hell out of the cockpit and not bother him while he was working. I was somewhat stunned and really annoyed by this boorish behaviour and left the flight deck a few minutes later to apologise to her. As I was chatting to her in the galley, the flight engineer came up the stairs and stopped to say hello. It then occurred to me that we all spoke French except Chuck, (who barely spoke English!) so I suggested that for the next three weeks the conversations between cabin crew and flight crew should be entirely in French. I guess it was to be a very long and lonely 21 days for Chuck. So, off to Lyon, but not before one small very French hiccup: once we had the doors closed and had obtained our pushback clearance from the control tower, I called the groundcrew via the intercom to ask them to remove the chocks and begin pushback. There was no reply, so after trying a couple of more times, even switching on the lower beacon to get their attention, I asked the purser to contact the gate agent with the idea of sending somebody downstairs to wake them up. After a couple of minutes the gate agent appeared on the flight deck to tell me that the ground crew had just gone on strike ! I couldn’t believe it. Before I had the chance to remonstrate further, she
told me that it would just be for 15 minutes. Sure enough, after 15 minutes the ground crew piped up telling me they were ready to push us back. Nobody seemed the slightest bit surprised; it seems this sort of job action was quite common in France. Now we really did depart for Lyon where we topped up our passenger and fuel load before departing for Djibouti. Never having visited any of these destinations, I was excited at the prospect.
The Djibouti Sheraton was well used to Air France, with about 30 rooms dedicated to Air France crews to look after their 2 weekly flights from Paris. The following couple of days we spent picnicking on sandy beaches, swimming in the warm waters of the Gulf, enjoying the local cafés and generally relaxing. 6 hours flying, 2 days off; so far so good, this was a great start. I was puzzled, however, as everywhere we went in Djibouti, we were accompanied by a couple of French Foreign Legionnaires, armed to the teeth. Sitting in a café with Corinne and some of the crew I asked why this was and was told of the terrorist attack on this very café, popular with expats and locals alike, a couple of months earlier which had injured many and killed two. A sobering thought ... where are those Legionnaires? I think I’ll buy them a beer. The
following night involved three legs, the first a short 2-hour flight to Kilimanjaro where we offloaded thirteen passengers and picked up two. Just an 11,000’ runway at Kilimanjaro, with no taxiways. To turn around after landing, I just taxied toward the end of the runway lining up on two stakes stuck in the ground ahead and when another two stakes on the left lined up, full left turn until the 180° turn is complete. About a three-foot clearance between wheels and runway edge each side. So simple. Had there been some fancy electronic gizmo, the locals would have nicked it years ago, but they obviously had no need for a few more sticks so left them be. The purser told me that there was a kiosk next to the passenger ramp where I would find our paperwork for the next leg. Off I went to find the kiosk empty except for a teleprinter that had helpfully spat out four feet of paper which was all of our flight plan information, weather, NOTAMs and so on. How perfectly efficient. The next leg was an hour’s hop to Moroni in the Comoros islands so off we thundered into the night sky. But no sooner had we raised the landing gear than there was a loud bang and sheets of flame from the number two engine, just to my left. The engine instruments were less than encouraging, so we shut
the engine down, happy that there was no fire. I did not think that Air France would be best pleased with me landing with a broken engine in Kilimanjaro, so I turned around and flew back to Djibouti. The ground staff in Djibouti quickly found the problem… a birdstrike, a crane, feathers and blood everywhere. These birds can reach ten pounds in weight and while I have no idea how big this one used to be, it demolished three fan blades. I was told that these birds generally don’t fly at night, cold comfort. Apparently, fixing the engine would be easily done once we received some replacement fan blades which would be on the next flight down from Paris in two days’ time. This was good to know, but the more pressing problem was how to manage our passengers. With no real hotel choices in 1990, and with a northbound Air France flight arriving, there were not enough rooms. Air France to the rescue again. The hotel created more beds by simply separating the mattress from the box spring. However, the passengers perhaps thinking they had been spared an ignominious end in East Africa, seemed in no mood for sleep. It was by now the middle of the night, but the kitchen was re-opened along with the bar and with Air France picking up the tab everybody was perfectly
happy having a good time. A couple of very pleasant days later the replacement fan blades duly arrived, so we rounded up the passengers and resumed our journey to Moroni, leaving Djibouti at 10pm. Moroni is part of the Comoros Island group between Madagascar and Mozambique, had been a French colony until the mid ‘70s and Air France remained its only European air link. Approaching the island, the sky was moonless, but brilliantly lit by the millions of stars. There was a solid layer of strato-cumulus below us stretching as far as the eye could see; it was like looking down onto a completely flat layer of brightly lit white popcorn. On trips like this with multiple legs It was my habit to take turns with the co-pilot with each of us performing the pilot-flying duties on alternate legs while the other handled the radios and so on. I had tossed a coin with Chuck in Paris, and he had started off as the flying pilot. It was Chuck’s turn to fly this leg into Moroni and we begin our descent toward the airport around 100 miles away from it. We enter cloud at 15,000’ with everything getting blacker and blacker the further we descend from the starlit sky. 10,000’ is as low as we can go safely until reaching the airport which is on the West coast, then we will head out to sea,
descending further before turning back towards the airport for landing. We break out of the clouds at 12,000’ or so and it’s black; no moon, no starlight, no ground lights, nothing. Completely black. The few lights ahead of us seem like pinpricks on a pitch-black background, they give no idea where the horizon might be. This is East Africa in 1990, and we are lucky to have any form of instrument approach to fly and this one at Moroni is an NDB approach which while reasonably common in the rest of the world, had long since been phased out in the USA. So, here’s Chuckepisode 2: I have no idea what Chuck was expecting at Moroni, he had not shared his thoughts as we began our descent. However, when it sank in that he couldn’t see anything outside and that I was expecting him to fly the beacon approach, he just flipped. He began shouting that he was not going to fly such an approach, he didn’t know how, he had never tried, it was out of date, unsafe and Moroni just a 3rd world airport and that this would never be allowed in the US. I had spent 20 years teaching this sort of stuff to commercial pilots in Canada so while surprised, was not particularly concerned with Chuck’s rant. Realising I was going to get no help from Chuck I took control of the
aircraft, told the two of them what I was going to do and what I expected from them then hunkered down to focus on the job at hand. Having been flying away from the airport out over the sea, I began a procedue turn at 6,000’ to intercept the final approach course back to the airport. During this turn I became aware of the worst case of the “leans” I had ever experienced. Our primary source of information as to which way is up comes from our eyes, we can see the horizon, the ground and the sky. With no visual reference, we rely on the senses provided by the ear’s semicircular canals and the seat of our pants. My brain, with no visual references at all, was fed with information from these canals which told me we were steeply turning, but the aircraft’s flight instruments told me were not. It’s tough to ignore one’s senses, but having explained and demonstrated this phenomenon to many students over the years, it was clear what was happening, and I knew that with a few minutes of unaccelerated flight and serious attention to the flight instruments that the “leans” would stop. They did. It’s now around 2am as we stabilize on our final approach course to the airport, and it is still pitch-black outside; no moon, no stars, nothing. The runway is parallel to the
coastline and perhaps 500’ inland from it. The hills inland of the airport are not very high, but I couldn’t see them at all, so with no visual cues whatsoever, I continued to fly entirely on instruments toward the airport. I had never seen such darkness, no horizon at all. The few twinkling lights of the airport gave no clue, I just stayed glued to the instruments until Chuck told me he had good visual contact with the ground in our landing lights, so I looked up from the instruments and landed. Enough of that nonsense. While we completed our loading and took on some fuel, I described the blackness to the purser who then told me that following recent flight timetable changes, Moroni was now a night-time arrival instead of daytime and that their own pilots, perhaps sensibly, flatly refused to fly into Moroni at night. Now I see why I’m on loan to Air France, leave Moroni to a contract captain ! It was hot on the ramp, and so were the brakes; Air France’s practical solution for cooling hot brakes was the fire truck hosing the wheel bogies with water, certainly not the Boeing procedure, but as usual with Air France, it seemed to work perfectly well. After an hour or so and grateful to be safely airborne once more we head on toward Mauritius, 2 hours to
the southeast. Waking up in Mauritius the following day I still couldn’t believe this schedule; it seemed like one long holiday; our fifth day out of Paris and we were to remain here for another week before positioning across to Réunion, where we would stay for two days before wending our way north to the Seychelles, Jeddah, Dhahran, and finally back to Paris. Mauritius airport is on the southwest side of the island, and we stayed in a lovely old-fashioned two story hotel on the beach of course, with the breeze, palm trees and the sound of the surf breaking on the sand to lull me to sleep. The week before, on our descent into Djibouti airport, the purser had advised me that one of the cabin attendants was preparing the crew package and was there anything I wanted. Being busy, and not quite understanding what she was asking, I replied that there was not. Later, after arriving at the hotel, I discovered that Air France has a crew room in all of their layover hotels, the catering for which comes from the inbound flights, booze and all, with company approval, which was what the cabin attendant had been preparing. Each evening before dinner the crew would collect in the crew room to chat, discuss dinner and all the other important layover
details. This was the case in Mauritius and, I have to say, the cabin staff were extremely hospitable toward us. Cargolux called me on the third day of our Mauritius stay to tell me that Chuck had been in touch asking to be relieved and flown back to Luxembourg. Cargolux told him they would agree to his request adding that his contract would be terminated on his arrival in Luxembourg but suggested he think about it for another day. Hence their call to me. They explained that there was not a replacement co-pilot available and could I please persuade, cajole, bribe or do something to keep Chuck on board for the rest of the flight. I did speak with Chuck, and after reminding him that he would never get another job in the contract world should Cargolux terminate him, he reluctantly agreed to continue. He still kept himself to himself and after a couple of failed attempts to get him to join the rest or us, we left him be. After a few more days of this paradise the purser asked if we would join their crew and leave Mauritius a day earlier than scheduled for Réunion so we could drive to the top of the 8,500’ volcano, stay the night and watch the sunrise from the top. All good five-star tourist stuff for free! This airline certainly has style. We had three vans for our jaunt up the volcano, one of
which seemed entirely full of the cabin crew’s offloaded airline catering supplemented by supplies from the Mauritius hotel. After a leisurely drive we reached some some stone cottages in the early evening just below the summit where we would spend the night. The crew prepared a real feast, of course washed down with Air France’s finest wines, which we savoured outside under brilliantly clear skies full of the southern sky’s constellations that I had never seen before. Rising in the pre-dawn darkness the following morning we walked the short distance across the lava fields to watch the sunrise, fortified by warm croissants and café-congac. A couple of days later our Indian Ocean idyll finally came to an end and we had to re-engage airline mode again, but not without a hitch. Just before boarding, the purser advised me there would be a delay. We knew that one of the cabin attendants, Pierre, was ill and would be remaining at the hotel, which was fine, but on arriving at the airport, his friend Antoine suddenly decided he couldn’t continue, he needed to remain with Pierre. This was not fine, as being short two cabin attendants, we could not monitor all of the aircraft’s exit doors so would have to leave one door disarmed and offload forty passengers from
our full flight. The purser had contacted Paris, but no amount of cajoling or threatening could persuade Antoine to leave Pierre so we offloaded the passengers and left. Perhaps the two of them remain, to this day, happily ensconced on Réunion. Off we went to the Seychelles, more beach again, then on to Jeddah. We hadn’t much time in Jedah, just overnight, but once again, the cabin crew came up trumps with an invitation to eat with them at a typically Arabian restaurant in the souk, Arab fashion, seated on cushions, under canvas, with endless platters of food; it was like something out of the Arabian Nights.
Chuck - episode 3: As we would be positioning to Dhahran on Saudi Arabian Airlines, and were travelling on a General Declaration without visas, the Saudi customs officials took our passports on our landing in Jeddah, to be returned prior to our departure from Dhahran, a perfectly normal procedure for transiting flight crews in Saudi Arabia. Chuck, predictably, began to protest loudly that he was American and would never surrender his passport. His behaviour became louder and louder but still he would not be persuaded. Finally, a Saudi station manager lost his normally patient demeanour and reminded
Chuck that Saudi Arabia was not a democracy, and that giving up his passport was undoubtedly preferable to a Saudi jail. Finally subdued, Chuck joined us on the Saudi Arabian Airlines flight to Dhahran. However, all was not quite over as Chuck, along with me and a few others wished to visit the souk and needed local currency, but the hotel reception required passports to change dollars to riyals. Chuck was not happy, again, and let everybody know in no uncertain terms. By this time Chuck had become a great source of amusement for the cabin crew who had never met a real live Texan before. After a few minutes Chuck saw me standing at the reception counter with a handful of Saudi riyals and demanded to know how I got them without a passport. I replied that being a dual citizen I had used my UK passport; most useful, two passports, didn’t he have two? At this point he became apoplectic and stormed off. Finally, arriving back at Charles de Gaulle airport in the cold light of a cold grey Paris dawn, I bid the Air France crew generally, and Corrinne particularly, a fond farewell and wondered what tomorrow would bring.
VIVE LA DIFFERENCE! Flying in France
By Derek Melton, Sustaining Member
This article was originally printed in the January-February 2021 issue of the Patrician. -Editor
At the end of 2008 my wife Carol and I moved to France, for what would be an eighteen
month stay. I was to concentrate on ecological studies in Francophone Africa, with a main client based in Paris. My base was to be an office in Lyon, but we decided to rent a gîcte 30km to the west in the Coteaux du Lyonnais wine region, just south of Beaujolais. Needless to say, as soon as I had time I researched what I would need to do to be able to fly in France and who was renting planes nearby.
My first visit was to L’aéroclubdu Rhône et du sud-
est at Le Bron (LFLY) aerodrome close to St. Exupéry (LFLL), Lyon’s main international airport. Le Bron had a single paved runway 1820m in length and was busy with commercial and private traffic. The club was also busy, with a fleet of quite new Cessna 152s and C-172 s-models and several welcoming staff. They explained that I should be able to receive a French licence based on my Canadian ppl. I would need to be checked out on a C-172, including undertaking a dual cross country. I would also need to study “La pratique des communications aéronautiques (à l’usage des ppl)”, culminating in a French language test. The licence would be issued by La Direction générale de l’aviation civile through the Fédération Française Aéronautique and would reference the aéroclub where I was a member. At the time, most small airstrips in France were French language only for communications. My French was “intermediate” at best so radio use would require some practice. I was tempted to sign up there and then since the plane would
be familiar, which would give me more room to concentrate on radio and airspace procedures. However, commuting from the west side of Lyon to Le Bronin the east was not a pleasant prospect, so I headed to the second nearby club, L’aéroclub du Beaujolaisat Villefranche-Tarare airport (Tarare LFHV). Tarare was an uncontrolled airport with only French for communications and a single paved 1040m strip used for helicopter and glider training as well as fixed wing flights.
It was a cool but sunny winter morning when the CFI Gilles showed me their fleet and club facilities. Carol had already been won over during the 30 minute rural drive north from where we were staying, through small villages and by many vineyards being cleaned up ahead of spring. I was also quickly sure that this would be the club to join, and not just because the restaurant had an excellent menu, plus a bar and a fine terrace next to the ramp. For many reasons flying out of Tarare airport promised to be more of a real French experience compared to flying C172s out of an airport in the suburbs of Lyon. The club had
six French-built low-wing planes that included: four Robin DR400 four-seaters, a Rallye fourseater, and a two-seater Jodel tail dragger with wheels and skis for mountain flight training (including glacier landings and take-offs in the nearby alps). I was quite taken with the DR-400; with its upturned wing tips, stick controls, and a sliding canopy, it looked very sporty and like nothing I had flown before. With a 160hp Lycoming engine, 220km/hr cruise and a gross weight of 1,000 kg, this plane serves the same functions that a C-172 does in Canada. I thanked Gilles for the friendly welcome, joined the club by paying a Euro 240 annual fee, booked a first lesson (Euro 176 dual, Euro 131 solo), and we were still in time for lunch, with Beaujolais wine of course.
My logbook shows four initial dual flights, the first for familiarization with the plane, orientation to the region and local procedures, a second for upper air work, and then a short cross country to Saint Yan (LFLN), an aerodrome with a tower, but also French only for communications. Of course ahead of all this I had my homework to do!
The Manuel de vol was a poor photocopy and was, of course, in French. However the layout was familiar so I soon worked through emergency procedures such as nemoteur immédiatement a prèsle décollage, and on to all the procédures normales. Speeds were given in km/hr, but with knots as back-up, which was the same in the cockpit. Weights were in kilograms, fuel was in litres. I had taken photos of an instrument panel, so I went through the French checklists at home while seeing what was where on my laptop screen. I
made up a small crib-sheet of basic French aviation phraseology and had that plus the French checklists on a small kneeboard with a map; there was not space for anything on one’s lap with the stick control.
So I was ready—or I hoped I was!
My instructor was Gérard, a retired Air France Airbus A330 captain. His English was therefore good, which aided me in the transition to a new plane and procedures. He was also easy going and tried not to laugh
too much as I read through the normal checklists on the intercom: miseen route, avantdé collage, etc. He was also forgiving with my radio communications such as Tarare de F-HBEG on sort de circuit 2100’, on quite la fréquence during departure, or F-HBEG en vent arrière droit trente-six when returning.
However, it was necessary to stay focused with French communications, especially in uncontrolled airspace and when flying solo. On more than one occasion, after I had broadcast my circuit joining intentions on traffic frequency coming back into Tarare, I heard a “quoi?” over the headset, prompting me to repeat my transmission, which usually clarified things for both of us. One time though the “quoi?” was quickly followed by another club member I knew who was flying nearby and transmitted, "Oh c’est le Canadien!" before helpfully repeating my call for the other pilot just to be sure! At this time there were new rules in the works that would require all French private pilots to have a basic understanding of English,
with an expected increased use of English at more airports in France, beyond just the major ones. If anyone reading this article is tempted to fly in France, they may now find less of a focus on the French language, which might ease their transition.
The Robin DR-400 is a great plane to fly, comfortable with excellent all round visibility, including being able to look down ahead of the wing. I had hardly flown low wing aircraft before, but quickly adapted and enjoyed its responsiveness to the stick and sprightly performance for a normally aspirated 160hp engine. However, being light to the touch meant that it was best not to dwell too long on items inside the cockpit, as a wing would invariably start to drop. The good performance is probably partly linked to having a wooden airframe and an empty weight of only 580kg which is about 200 lbs less than an N model C-172. My first dual flight was in March 2009. During May the club helped me complete and send in the required application forms, fees and various photocopies. Then, somewhat to my surprise,
my French licence arrived in the post mid-June. I highly recommend flying in France and especially in a Robin DR400 through the Aéroclub du Beaujolais; although I am sure many other good clubs exist with the usual mix of excellent instructors and interesting members. If you do not have the time to obtain a French licence, why not break up a wine tasting trip with a couple of dual flights in a sporty French plane? As recreational pilots it’s easy to be conservative and stick to familiar routes in one type of plane, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, there is always a rewarding sense of accomplishment after successfully completing something new, whether that’s heading to a new airport, gaining an additional rating, flying a different plane, or even flying in a different country. Bon vol!
Derek moved to BC after returning from France and joined the VFC in 2012. Derek has flown in Botswana, South Africa and the USA, in addition to Canada and France.
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