NO MATHS = NO FLY On October 9th 1890, French Airman Clément ADER left the ground with a "batlike" airplane named "l'EOLE". This took place not far away from Paris, in the parc of a Chateau in Gretz-Armainvilliers. Clément ADER was a gifted student who became a reputable engineer. His dream : to fly a " heavier than the air" machine. 80 years later, when I applied to continue with my flying dreams,I realized how weak in math I was , and how little time I had to compensate ! In France, there is a stupid approach which precludes those undergifted in mathematics to become either military or civilian pilots. He or She who cannot demonstrate why E=MC2 have no place in the air !
(An Air France postal service DC.3)
( La Flèche des Almadies. I suppose the picture must have been taken after it was brought to the "final" place before cutting down)
Things may have changed a bit nowadays, but in France, we were far away from the US approach and surely enough the authorities in place coupled with the traditional French upperty attitude wanted to protect this profession from people like myself who had now idea how to solve and equation,or add and substract -7 and + 9 ! I tried the Air Force, I tried the Army Light Aviation....and was sent simply to my DR400 ( Robin-Petit Prince) to fly over the Paris area, one ear listen to the radio on the traditional " club" frequency, while taking my three passengers for a tour over the Seine-et-Marne area ! Have I been alone, I would have probably looked at the possibility of going to America ( I had seen these leaflets about flying schools in Florida....) but I was engaged ! and (sssshhhhh, don,t repeat.. there was a baby on the way) .....!!!
(La Flèches des Almadies , the Presidential plane of the Senegal Republic) I needed to find a decent job...to make a living.... I put back on the shelves all of my aeronautical dreams, closed my "Carnet de Vol" ( personal flying log book) and started saving some money for the future..... I did not give away my passion for airplanes.....and found a job in Orly airport, working for an American car rental company.... This was not my dream, but at least I was not far away from airplanes....and by my window I could see, a few hundred yards away a wonderful airplane, probably in long maintenance.... It was named " Flèche des Almadies" . It was the presidential airplane of the Republic of Senegal, an African country with which France had historical ties. It was a Lockheed 749... Every now and then, I went close by,just to see if that specific smell of grease, oil and avgas was still around... Working on International airport, why not trying to land a job in the airline industry ? This would be the next step...!
NB: Flèche des Almadies was originally F.BAZL which arrived in France on Sept 22nd 1947 from the US as a new airplane manufactured by Lockheed and sold to Air France. It was equipped with Wright Cyclone 749C18-BD1 engines.it was sold to the Republic of Senegal on March 25th 1966...