Recently I have been asked if I would share what life was like as an airline pilot. Over the course of forty years, I have worked for eight different airlines of which only one is still in existence. Throughout these years many events have transpired of which some remain in memory. I’ll give you an idea of what happened on one such trip, flying ad hoc charters. These were worldwide cargo flights on a DC-8.

The call came in the evening with a pairing to fly 80,000 lbs. of rat poison to the Sudanese government in Khartoum. Having never been there seemed like a nice challenge, so I prepared for the flight.  Loaded and ready we launched from Montreal and headed eastbound.  Everything was operational and the old DC-8 performed well.  Oceanic clearance and off to the rising sun. Our first stop was Milan, overnight and then the following morning, direct Khartoum, Sudan. Beautiful clear sky, Athens, the Mediterranean was a lovely sight as was the coast of Africa.  A good glimpse of the pyramids, the Nile, then descent to Khartoum.

We had the cargo offloaded and had our crew rest, beautiful hotel overlooking the Nile, which incidentally is not blue but brown.

Now to our surprise, the government wanted a $15,000 royalty fee for this gift which had been donated by the US.  Not having that amount of declared cash, we refused and were told that the aircraft would not be refuelled.

We called operations and the message was “get out of Africa, head for a safer destination of your choice and wait.”   Minimum fuel on board the only destination which seemed adequate was Jeddah, so during prayer time as everyone on the ramp were on their knees  looking eastbound, we got the old bird started and headed across the Red Sea in that direction.

In this type of operation, pilot dispatch and enroute problems were settled by the captain.  When we left home base, we were handed a brown paper bag filled with cash to cover unexpected expenses during the trip. Sitting in Saudi Arabia, after two days the message came through: “fuel the airplane to the hilt and launch to HongKong, you have a load of textile to pick up.” 

Not having an overflight clearance for Cambodia, we had to flight plan for twelve hours thirty minutes. Off we go and head across to the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, Bombay, Bay of Bengal, the coast of Thailand, down to Singapore and then up the South China Sea to Hong Kong.  Halfway up the coast, our navigation system was downgraded to one Omega with no update possible, missing data on nav charts and two generators inop. 

We flew the famous checkerboard approach at Kai Tak and descended between the buildings to land after flying 12:45 hours with minimum fuel and a 10 minute alternate.  The next morning, textiles loaded we took off for Singapore where the aircraft needed additional maintenance.  We arrived there in monsoon rains, held for one hour and once again our navigation system broke down. Horizontal rain on a soaked runway with a DC-8 sure gets one attention.

Next morning, company wanted us in Rotterdam to pickup a load of green peppers, so off we go.  On some of these trips we had to do our own modified flight planning and pick the better routes so our choice was for Sri Lanka, the Gulf of Oman and a fuel stop at Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Got our fuel and on takeoff, engine fire no4.

This DC-8 had a hush kit and experienced many false fire warnings. The procedure was to throttle back and wait, which we did however not climbing much. After what seemed a long wait the fire warning went out and happily we pressed on to Holland.

After the green peppers and three cows were loaded, they wanted us in Stansted, to pick up a horse. This was getting to be a long day and we were all very tired, so the decision was to overnight. The next morning, we set off westbound on a restful flight across the Atlantic and delivered our interesting load in Mirabel.

Two days later, I was assigned to fly a load of cattle to Casablanca, ferry to Agadir and return with a load of tangerines to Toronto. Next trip, we delivered televisions to Manaus, Brasil, picked up bananas and lamas in Peru, the list went on and the variety never ceased.  We have flown cows, pigs, horses, lamas, seals, elephants, wine, snakes, bombs, name it we were always ready but there never was a trip without a mechanical problem or some unusual event. We were young, adventurous and loved the challenge.

This all lasted over a period of two years, and many more of these similar flights, then I  moved on to fly once again passengers all over the world.

 Gerry Champoux

Employed by: Air Gaspé, Quebecair, ACS, Wardair, Nationair, Royal, Air Club, KoreanAir.

F-27, CV-580, BAC1-11, B-737, DC-8, L-1011, B-747…..Aviat Husky…..