In the last few weeks we all have been confined to our homes as witnesses of a changing world. As of this writing hope is appearing, and we will slowly but surely go back to a world that we’ve enjoyed before.
During this time I decided to reflect on the opportunity I had in creating and operating Air Journey, and I would like to share with you one of the chapters that will appear in a book I am writing.
The story is about my first Air Journey in 1998.
Back in 1981, I came across a travel offer to fly with a group of pilot/owners to Timimoun, the red oasis in the middle of the Sahara Desert in Algeria. The trip promised several stops in Algeria.
I signed up as a participant and flew with a friend in a V35 Bonanza. This experience created lasting memories. A private plane is one of the best ways to discover the most hidden places on earth.
My initial goal was to approach European pilots to see if there was any interest in flights traveling around the United States and Caribbean. I decided to ask the pilot behind the Algerian journey to find out if he would have an interest in marketing a journey to the Bahamas to European clients. The request was answered with a very positive yes.
After creating an itinerary to visit about five Bahamian islands, I also secured rental aircraft from a flight school in Florida, making sure we had all the proper airplanes based on the requests of the participants, including all the survival equipment like life vests and rafts. The group soon arrived from Europe—one crew from Switzerland, two crews from France, and the gentleman who organized the Algerian journey flying with me.
The morning we were planning to leave I got a call from the brand-new chief pilot of the flight school, who had just started that morning, asking me if everybody had a U.S. pilot certificate. When you fly an N-registered aircraft, you must have an FAA certificate and I was the only one with the certificate. This resulted in having to find an FAA expert who was willing to convert the European licenses to the FAA requirements.
The interesting thing was that the day before I had asked the owner of the flight school whether we needed the certificate and the answer was no. So now we had a journey ready to go, we had the people on site, we had the planes reserved, but we couldn’t fly them because of lack of proper paperwork.
A fast call to the then-office of the FAA in Fort Lauderdale told me that it was pretty easy at the time to get a U.S. certificate by equivalence. We simply had to meet with the gentleman who was accredited by the FAA to do such a thing. I reached out to him and he was able to meet us in 90 minutes at Lantana (KLNA). The rental fleet was based at Stuart, about an hour north.
We all drove to Lantana to meet a character who was helping the FAA on the side. His background was a B17 pilot during World War II flying over Europe, and he was traveling with a trusted typewriter. How many of you remember what they look like?
We sat down in one of the offices at the Lantana Airport and provided him our credentials – European pilot licenses – for him to transcribe into the official FAA paperwork.
Interesting side note: He asked each one of us, except for me, for a fee of $100 – some money at the time. I was kind of surprised that there was such a fee imposed by the FAA. But we were in a hurry. The Bahamas were waiting.
Before he left, he offered us a book and asked us what language we would like it in. Instead of covering FAA guidelines, airspace or the environment, it was a Bible of Jehovah Witnesses. We said thank you and went on our merry way back to Stuart and then the Bahamas.
We had 10 exciting days in the Bahamas and then it was time to come back to the United States. We flew from Bimini to Miami Opa-Locka Airport and cleared Customs. Everything worked well. At the time there was no eAPIS requirement, thus there was no need to call Customs ahead of time. We simply filed a VFR flight plan and put in Box 18 an “Add for Advise Customs” and we were good to go.
After clearing Customs with no problem, it was time to fly back to Palm Beach International Airport. My mistake! At the time, I was our journey director and was not in the lead airplane, but rather the last.
As you recall, there were four airplanes traveling; however, we ended up with three 90-day FAA certificate suspensions. So, what happened? Well, the first plane coming in was flown by a German-Swiss gentleman who was a pretty strong character, as we saw previously on the journey. He was not accustomed to the way flights were handled in the United States, and he basically told the controller that he was going around Palm Beach International to make the pattern he wanted. The controller asked his intentions when he cut over the main runway. A rather heated exchange followed that I was not privy to, but basically the pilot complained that the controller didn’t tell him to descend; however, he was cleared for the option. On top of that, the controller said, “You are in my airport airspace and I am the one telling you where you fly. Now, since you cut the main runway, you are going to reposition yourself for a second VFR approach, and when you land, call me. This is the tower number.” Ok, one down.
Airplane number two was a younger French couple that had a little language misunderstanding or difficulty understanding English. Unfortunately, another airplane was on the approach with the same ending tail number. They took all of the other airplane instructions for themselves and as they were approaching Palm Beach they told approach, “We are entering the downwind, what do you want us to do?” Approach said, “Who are you, where are you, where are you going?” They were then switched to tower, and the controller said, “Call me after you land.”
The third airplane was a French couple, both doctors, flying a Grumman Tiger. They understood English and communicated pretty well. They lined up for Runway 9 Right (now 10R), which from the air looks very short (it’s about 3,200 feet), while 9 Left looked very appealing with about 10,000 feet of runway. Out of nowhere they decided to sidestep and land on 9 Left, to the misery of a US Airways 737 that had to perform a go-around. Guess what? The ground controller gave them instructions to call when they shut down.
In the meantime, your journey director, Thierry, was approaching Palm Beach, made contact with approach, and the controller said, “Palm Beach Class C is closed. We have a bunch of clowns here.” That must be my clowns! I made 360s over the ocean waiting for the call to come in. Eventually the controller said, “The clowns have landed. Class C is re-opened.”
Long story short, I landed, went to the FBO, shut down and the FBO customer service representative looked at me and said, “Thierry, here is the number. The tower wants to talk to you.”
That’s how all three ended up with 90-days certificate suspensions. Thank God I did not quit on the Air Journey concept after that first rather unusual experience. Since then I have never had—knock on wood—a controller give me a number to call the tower.
Air Journey founder Thierry Pouille has visited 172 countries and landed in more than 95 in his or Air Journey participants airplanes. For more information on guided flying tours, see www.airjourney.com.
