Richard Yeomans

There is no easy way from Ankara to London, we had to catch a connecting flight to Frankfurt. The whole process takes about 7 hours but is not too painful. I am not in a massive rush to get home and as I write this I am sitting on a Turkish Airline plane and its very comfortable. I just hope they can find the runway in Frankfurt. The day started well, I was up before the alarm but seemed to be slow at getting out of my room. I normally have a simple process, wake up, shower and jump in my uniform; easy. Today Im travelling in civvies so I couldn’t follow my normal routine. I went to check out of the hotel but I had a feeling something was wrong. I kept my key and popped back to my room to find my uniform sitting in the wardrobe. That was a close call, imagine trying to get that sent back to the UK.

The airport in Ankara is a very modern and beautiful building. It was very quiet and made Heathrow Terminal 2 look like a souk. We found the check in desk, only one desk for the flight but there was only a short queue. We had to wait 30 minutes as the lady just took ages to print out the boarding passes. She kept disappearing, it was as if she took each bag to the plane and threw it in the hold. As we were waiting for our boarding passes we saw the next crew for our plane. The beauty of the Falcon 2000 Fleet is that it only has 7 planes and we all know each other. They are off to Moscow, good luck to them!

I am been thinking about what makes a good captain. It is a difficult role to fulfill and some people think its just about flying the plane. In the Army it is easier, all the soldiers generally come from one culture and rank is respected more. In an airline, it is much more of a challenge, especially in a company like Netjets. The principles that I was taught at Sandhurst still are valid but I need a host of new skills. Good technical knowledge can make life so much easier as the crew have greater confidance in you. Some of my colleagues are such good company that the crew love going on tour with them and they seem to get the job done with ease. I find myself being mission focused and I just try to get the job done as well as possible. I would like to do some more command training to help me devlop my skills. I dont think that I am a bad captain, I just would like to see how others do it and see if I can get better at my job.

I have made it home but my bag didn’t.  I don’t really mind if my bag goes missing, a nice man in a van will drop it off tomorrow.  I did make a big fuss a year ago when I collected my bag from Terminal 2 and it was covered in vomit!  That wasn’t nice but that’s another story.

I’m in Ankara, it’s the capital of Turkey and has 4.75 million people living within the city.  Interesting eh?  Well it’s a big city in the middle of a big country and that’s all I can say about it.  I’m in the Hilton and it’s full and they have metal detectors at the doors, there must be an event on.  My room is good but, I found a sign that says my room has been prepared up by someone called Yakup.  I don’t know why, but Yakup hasn’t really taken on as a name in the UK.

We flew some super VIP people today and we literally got the red carpet treatment.   I just have to think what it must be like for these people flying around in our jets when they stop doing their jobs and return to life like the rest of us.  In the future the lead passenger, who is travelling with 6 staff members, will have a change of job, a change in his life and then he will be an ordinary person.  He will have to go to Kwik Fit and get ripped off and insulted like us all.  that thought made me laugh.

It’s the end of the tour, I’m catching the airline home tomorrow.  I think it is going to be a long day on two airlines to get back to Heathrow.  This is one of the hardest places to end a tour, just my luck.

We left Paris and headed to Milan.  The plane we have had for the last few days has had to go into maintenance for a routine check so we all had to get on an Alitalia to Linate.  I find the act of catching airline causes so much extra fatigue compaired to operating an aircraft.  Anyway, the airline was on time and we arrived in Milan in time to have a coffee and prepare for the flight to Dubrovnik.

It was a beautiful approach into the airport over the coast and a fun visual approach.  It is one of the best parts of the job to be able to kick off the autopilot and get back to the basics of hand flying.  We waited at the airport until the flight we were ‘backing up’ took off and then we headed to the Hotel.  We had rooms in the 5 star Hilton in the centre of town over looking the coast.  Sometime we are very lucky in our work and I felt that tonight was as good as it gets.  We had a drink in the 4th floor lounge and then we went out to get a meal.  We walked through the town centre and it was pretty busy with tourists including loads of Americans.

We found a really nice little pizza place and we ate well and all was good with the world until, it came time to pay!!  I put my hand in my pocket to fish out my Kuna but it was gone.  I had lost 400 Kuna and the only way it could have gone missing is if I was pick pocketed.  I was so annoyed.  I hated the idea of someone stealing my hard earned cash.  That was over £30 and I was not happy.  Then, when you think about it, it is not a lot of money really.  My phone could have been stolen and that would have been a disaster.  What amazed me is that someone put their hand in my pocket and I didn’t even get a little tickle.  He must have been good, you have to acknowledge real skill and craft when you see it.

I have just slipped out to get some more money from the ATM and I walked back with both hands stuffed in my pockets and my head down.  They won’t get me again…..I hope.

The other night in Paris as I was waiting for the passengers I saw something unusal. Two young women who where all dressed up to go out for the night walked out of the FBO and into the hangar. About 2 minutes later they walked out carrying bags, it looked very suspicious. I thought it could be a case of theft but equally it could be totally innocent. I chatted to my colleague about what we saw and the possible courses of action. I felt I should report the activity I observed to the company and I wrote an email to Lisbon. I felt good for doing the right thing. 

Last night when we arrived back in Paris I was met by two very angry cleaners. They were the young ladies I saw the previous night and their boss was after an explaination. They questioned me as to why I had reported them and I spent several uncomfortable minutes justifying myself to these cleaners. Sometimes I question if it is better to just look away. Why do I have to look for trouble so sucessfully? Recently I have been having a real problems looking for the right moral course to take. I guess life isn’t meant to be easy.

I never sleep well on my first night away and last night was no exception. I did fall asleep with all the lights on but then woke at 5 and couldnt get back to sleep. I found myself looking at cars on eBay. Not the best place to look for cars but a local Porsche dealer advertises there and its always worth a look. Why do all pilots want a Porsche?

I have been sent to Paris on a BA flight and as the flight is full, I found myself in Business Class.

I had to wait 3 hours in Paris for the rest of the crew and for the passengers to arrive. I was starting to get worried when the passengers arrived late as the airport closes at 22:00. When they did arrive they were not too worried about being late and the outside of the plane turned into a photo shoot. One passenger lit a cigarette and stood by the nose of the plane to have his photo taken. Thankfully we managed to take off just in time at 21:59!!! I didnt want to spend another night in Paris and I really didnt relish having to have to tell The passengers that we couldnt take off.

We landed in Nice after a lovely quiet night flight. I love flying at night, the air is smooth and the radio is quiet. At about midnight we got to one of my favorite hotels right on the coast in Nice. Of course we had minimum rest and we had to leave after breakfast. Why do I spend 2 days in a Moscow hotel in the woods but hours in Nice. It is the lot of a Netjets pilot.

Another day 1 and no airline. I made my way to Heathrow and then got a car to Northolt. We sat around and chatted for hours waiting for the plane to arrive. When it landed the crew said that they werent happy with some vibration in the rudder peddles. The very best thing about Netjets is that if there is any doubt with the technical status of the plane, its grounded. We were going to go Ibiza but someone else did the flight.

We headed to the hotel at Terminal 5 and I had a very chilled night. After the gym I walked down to a very nice old pub and sat in the garden. There is something wonderful about a country pub in the summer even if it is half a mile from the busiest international airport in the world.

At the end of my last tour I was given standby in the hotel near Heathrow until 1pm and the rest of the crew flew home. I decided to do my standby from my car and headed home.

It was all going well until I turned onto the M3 and then the traffic stopped. The police came roaring down the hard shoulder and then a helicopter landed. I was glad I had a TV in my car and I settled down for a long stay. After an hour, I was bored with daytime TV and I walked over to chat to a policeman. He told me it would be some time because it had gone fatal. I suggested that as the fella was dead they should drag the vehicles to the side of the road and let everyone get moving. He called me a heartless prick. I lashed out and said, Im going to take your number. He didnt seem as shocked as I would have like. Then he said he was going to search me under section 14 of the anti-terrorism act. I was happy to do that as I had nothing, not a thing, on me, it was all in the car. The hapless copper then said he was going to search my car. I suggested that he couldnt do that legally. He then just said, piss off and I did happily. It was a jolly pleasant way to spend 20 minutes and soon after I was on my way down the M3.

What amazed me was the way the police use anti-terrorism law as field punishment No 1. Why can a policeman use this hateful law without and probable cause. Its a mad world we live in.

I was up before my alarm, bag packed and ready to go by 7:30. I have found the time difference of just 3 hours hard to cope with, maybe long haul flying isnt got me. I had a non-Jaffa Cake breakfast, just some funny smelling eggs.

At Vnukovo things went smoothly and before long we were in the blue sky. The flight seemed long, 4 hours can drag sometimes. I was struck by the colours of the scenery as we arrived in Nice. Moscow was so grey and miserable, it was like the black and white scenes from the Wizard of Oz. Nice is over the rainbow.

We waited for 6 hours before we flew to London with 10 passengers. It turned out to be a long day, over 15 hours in total. It was very nice to be back in the UK where things seem pretty easy.

Standby in Moscow sounds pretty good but, the reality is a little different.  We are stuck in the Imperial Park and it is still very weird but now it’s raining.  I was going to take a walk down to the lake but, it’s just not worth getting soaked so I am spending my day reading, doing a little surfing on the interweb.  I will go to the gym later to work off my delicious breakfast.

Breakfast was very, very average and I ended up eating Jaffa Cakes, it makes we wish for the ‘mouth watering breakfast’ from the Days Inn in Luton.  Eating in Moscow is pretty difficult as the food is strange and expensive.  Last night at dinner I was offered the ‘Cow’s Tongue’ but went for the pasta.  I was wondering who is going around the Russian countryside cutting the tongues out of cow and can they still moo?  It is a strange day when I wish I was in Luton.

There is one thing worse than a late passenger, that is an early passenger.   So, the passengers turned up early in Zurich and wanted to go straight away.  We didn’t rush but managed to get away a little early and the flight went very well.  The radio was quiet and we had something to eat over Poland at forty one thousand feet.  It was beautiful to watch the moon rise and I had a real feeling of being insignificant.  Whatever we do, whatever is the state of the economy, however important we think we are, the world keeps on turning….

 When we arrived at Sheremetyevo we turned the plane around quickly and we had to depart quickly to Vnukovo before it closed at 03:15 so there was little time to waste.  There was some pressure applied to get into Vnukovo before it closed but, the weather was good and the radio was quiet.  In fact i think we were the only plane flying at that God awful time of night.  Vnukovo was quiet and the landing was really quiet pleasant.   The dramas, like they always seem to do, started on the ground.  Someone, somewhere had failed to book the transport to the hotel and as the airport was closed there were no taxis.  We called Lisbon but, we had to wait for 2 hours and watch the sun come up.  It was a cathartic experience to relax in the cool, still early morning air and watch the sun rise.

We got into the hotel and I headed for bed at 6, a long day or was it just a short night!  I love the glamour of aviation…..I just wish some could head my way.  I now have a day of standby at the Imperial Park Hotel and Spa.