Aviation Man

Last Friday, Captain Malcolm Chan-a-Sue, AA, an aviation man and a son of our soil was laid to rest. His departure leaves a void in our society which will be very difficult to fill. The Captain was more than a pilot, more than an aviation man, more than a visionary.

Growing up on a farm in Mabaruma in the North West District, according to his sister Marjorie, he had a little book with aeroplanes which he had covered with brown paper which no one was allowed to touch and he was constantly searching the skies for aeroplanes. On a trip to Atkinson Field, he met one of his heroes, Chuck Yeager, a World War II ace, who had broken the sound barrier in 1947. The photograph he received (still in his possession at the time of death) inscribed with the words “from One Farm Boy to Another” no doubt fanned the flames to fly. After five years at St Stanislaus College, he won the first British Guiana (BG) Pilot Scholarship to the legendary Perth Flying School, Airworks Services Training at the Scone Aerodrome in Perth, Scotland. From the trainers, predominantly former RAF Battle of Britain pilots who expected the best, along with the Scottish weather, ‘which is known to be unforgiving to the careless, the reckless and the foolhardy,’ he received the best exposure one could have experienced at the time.

Upon his return to BG in July 1958, he received BG Commercial Pilot’s Licence #29, and was appointed First Officer on the Grumman Goose and the Douglas DC3 of the BG Airways fleet. From thereon, Captain Chan-a-Sue’s resume speaks for itself. In 1962, he became the Ground School Instructor for Incoming Co-Pilots. In 1965, he was appointed Captain in command of the DC3, his favourite aircraft. He rose to the position of Chief Pilot of (by then) Guyana Airways Corporation (GAC) in 1974 which he held until 1990. Of his 25,810 flying hours, 21,309 were attained as Pilot in Command. During his tenure as Chief Pilot at GAC, he achieved his long- held dream of jet operations.

Captain Chan-a-Sue will be remembered for all the time and attention he dedicated to the training of young pilots. His old-school approach to following procedures, standards and regulations are firmly emblazoned in the minds of those who were fortunate to have the benefit of his vast knowledge, tremendous experience and stern guidance in his famous lessons.

After such a highly successful career as a pilot in the public sector, many persons would have been content to coast in their retirement; not Captain Chan-a-Sue. One of his many well-quoted one-liners was, “If you stop, you drop”. As a man of several interests and pursuits, an avid lover of wildlife and an ornithologist (he was never without his pair of ‘binos’) Captain Chana-Sue set his sights on fulfilling his other aviation

visions in the private sector.

While continuing to fly for Trans Guyana Airways, Captain Chan-a-Sue set up an eco-tourism company with his Scottish wife, Margaret, whom he had met in 1962 (and married in Glasgow in 1963) while on secondment to BOAC (now British Airways) for navigation and operations training. (He was licensed as a Flight Navigator by the UK CAA in an era when aircraft did not have inertial navigation and GPS systems). He then galvanized the owners of private aircraft to form the Guyana Private Aircraft Owners Association in 1992, and served as a director. He correctly envisioned that with the decline of GAC, Ogle Airport, then owned by GuySuCo, the base of most of the private aircraft owners, would become the hub of domestic travel.

Under the umbrella of the association, along with the late Charles Hutson (who passed away two weeks ago) he co-founded the Art Williams and Harry Wendt (pioneers of aviation in British Guiana) Aeronautical School of Engineering. He was of the firm belief that safe flights were just as much down to the ground crew as to the flight crew, hence his push for the institution. On his passing, the school’s media release noted that Chan-a-Sue had dedicated 25 years of “service, business insight, consultation, expertise and professionalism as Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Director of this institution”. His vision that Guyana could have a worldclass institution capable of producing aeronautical engineers of international standard is reflected in the high number of graduates working in the field in Guyana, the Caribbean and throughout the world.

The next goal was to see Ogle Airport attain the status of an international airport capable of supporting jet operations. With only a 25-year lease, the Aircraft Owners Association of Guyana (AOAG) could not secure the necessary financing to develop a full-fledged international airport. Michael Correia, a Past President of the AOAG, during his tribute at the funeral, wryly observed, “Chan-a-Sue never gives up. Everybody that knows Chan-a-Sue knows this.” Correia then related how Chan-a-Sue approached Edwin Carrington, the Secretary General of Caricom at the time, and managed to secure a grant of 1.5 million euros to finance the development of the airport. The Captain’s mother had taught him that ‘success comes in cans, not can’ts’.

Captain Chan-a-Sue lived life to the hilt. Whether it was bird watching on the shores of Alaska, or getting together with his wife and their three children, their spouses and the five grandchildren every few years in some part of the world, he was a man on the go. His pursuit of excellence in all areas was supported by a lifelong voracious reading habit, preferably done in his favoured hammock. He was a member of the National Geographic Society since January of 1961.

Captain Chan-a-Sue, in the words of his second son, Stephen, himself an airline pilot, “would eat, sleep and breathe all matters aviation. The flying of aircraft, the history of aviation, the maintenance of aircraft, etc.” He was an aerobatic rated pilot and flew until the age of seventy. Aviation was the man’s passion and life, and he pursued it relentlessly, even visiting airports. Between his hands-on training with countless pilots and the engineering school, he was responsible for improving the lives of many Guyanese. His contribution of 60 years to the aviation sector of Guyana now stands second to none, and it is incumbent upon us as a nation to commemorate it in a substantial manner.

With his skillset, knowledge and experience Captain Chan-a-Sue could have flown the coop years ago and easily found lucrative employment overseas. Yet, he chose to stay and utilise his tenacity and drive to help develop his country which he strongly believed in. As requested by his son Alistair, at the end of his moving eulogy, “next time you have an ice cold beer, preferably in a cold mug or glass, you remember him and raise a toast to the man that can.”

Captain Malcolm Gregory Chan-a-Sue, Patriot: Touchdown May 27, 1939 - Departure November 22, 2021. Rest in Peace.