Jean-Paul Dubreuil
Jean-Paul Dubreuil: In the 1940s, when I was a child, we used to see planes go by, that's all. I was lucky enough to discover aviation thanks to a prac- tical work teacher, who got me to make model planes, which I flew. That was my first contact with the world of aviation. At the age of 16 and a half I got my pilot's licence, before I got my driving licence! I don't need to tell you about all the planes I flew on before I finally bought a Beechcraft Bonanza, which I flew on business trips. My best flight? It's a relatively recent memory, dating from May 2018, when we opened the French Bee route to Tahiti: I was in the cockpit with the crew of the A 350, and we landed in San Francisco. The weather was
that, you wonder when you're going to get out of there! It was relatively quick, but those minutes remain long and difficult, even in our memories.
Marc Rochet, CEO of Aérogestion, was born and bred in the aviation industry.
Marc Rochet: I was lucky enough to be born into a family that was already in the airline business. My father worked for Air France. I spent my childhood in Africa; my first memory must date back to the age of 7, on a flight to Brazzaville, with a stopover in Algiers. The plane was a Douglas DC-4, just befo- re the Constellation. I remember the noise of the piston engines! We were flying lower than in a jet. In other words, it was nothing like flying today. There weren't many passengers, it wasn't the era of air transport for all. I have several memories of flights that stand out. The one that stands out in
superb, and I was thinking: what a route! I was thin- king back to the day when I inaugurated my first scheduled flight to the Ile d'Yeu, with a BN2 Islander, 40 years earlier! Those are some impres- sive memories. Bad memories? There are a few, as a private pilot: weather phenomena, thunderstorms, yes! Impres- sive! When there's fog, you can see it, you know whether you can land or not. We know more about thunderstorms now, with weather radar, and you can avoid them in a jet, but when I flew on a Beechcraft King Air, I sometimes spent endless minutes in thunderstorms that I couldn't avoid, dragged into them at level 100, with altitude move- ments and the feeling of being a wisp of straw, with hail pounding loudly on the cockpit. At times like
particular was when I was 19, on a magnificent trip to the United States. At the time, I left Orly with TWA, the emblematic American airline, which has disappeared. I remember that flight very well for two reasons: I was on board a jet that could cross the Atlantic Ocean, the Boeing 707, and it was my first exposure to the American world, New York and the United States. Later I went on to work in the air transport indus- try, which brought me into close contact with the world of tourism. Looking back, I remember a travel agency manager saying: "There are three magical destinations in the world, New York, the pyramids of Egypt and Tahiti, that everyone wants to visit one day in their life".
47
~C L A S S & R E L A X L I F E S T Y L E M A G A Z I N E - 2024 ~
Made with FlippingBook - PDF hosting