FOR flying instructor Romain Jantot, it was a normal trip, until he glanced up at the wing.
There, clinging on for dear life, was a cat.
Mr Jantot had taken off in his microlight without realising the animal was there, until the cat edged its way along the wing then poked its head into the cockpit.
It remained there, paws wrapped around the aircraft’s frame, as Mr Jantot guided the microlight back down to earth. The cat then jumped on to the runway and padded away, apparently none the worse for wear.
The journey, in French Guiana, was recorded by an onboard camera as Mr Jantot took the mother of one of his students on a flight. Mr Jantot, 28, who is training to be a helicopter pilot and has been flying since the age of 15, posted the footage on YouTube.
The video was entitled “Remove cat before flight” and Mr Jantot joked that the experience showed the importance “of checking the wings before each flight”.
He said the cat was seen regularly at the ULM aviation club in the town of Kourou. “She’s sort of our mascot, and just hangs around the aerodrome all the time looking for food.”
Writing on Facebook, Mr Jantot said he had “screwed up” by not noticing the cat before take-off, but added: “I still don’t know if it got in after the pre-flight check or if I missed it. I had opened the wings and she must have been at the back.”
He said he tried to stay calm when he noticed the cat, so as not to make it jump: “I didn’t want to react too much, because the cat knew me and I didn’t want her to jump towards me. So I tried to ignore her and concentrate on getting the plane down to the ground.”