It’s Unfortunate For My Wife –I’ve Been Going Away All My Life
Sam Caulcrick is a Nigerian. He grew up in Lagos State and ended up in Zaria, Kaduna State. Being in the skies is no strange thing for Caulcrick. At 50 years of age, he has covered more mileage than half of Nigeria’s population. Even the comic character,
Iwas born in Lagos Island, Lagos State. I attended St. Paul’s School, Breadfruit Street Lagos, Baptist School, Ebute Ero and Eko Boys High School. While I was there, a couple of my colleagues started talking about flying. I was never interested because I felt I was very good at the sciences. People felt it was a course for dropouts. But then nobody knew about Zaria, in Kaduna State –at least in my own class. In my final year, a former student of the school, who was the Senior Prefect when I was in Class 1, drove into the school with a brand new car and said ‘I am a pilot, yes pilot!’ It was then we started asking questions. I now discovered that he went to a college in Zaria to train as a pilot but nobody knew. Thereafter, I applied to the Nigerian Air force and I was called for the interview. Again, I never really liked it because it would mean I was going to be a soldier. My parents did not allow me to join NAF eventually. Later on, I saw an advert about Zaria. I now remembered the encounter with my senior in school and I said okay, let me apply as I have just left school. More so, I just got a scholarship to study Electronics in the United States. Within that time also, Zaria advertised and like a huge joke, a couple of people applied. About two months later, they saw my name in the national dailies that I have been called for an interview. In those days you could get your mail from the post office box or the mail man will ride to the house to deliver it. I was excited. The school was then called Technical Development and Research Organisation (TEDRO) Zaria. I went for the interview and a couple of days later, people saw that my name was published in the Daily Times as one of the successful candidates. But I have never left Lagos. All my life revolved around school, Surulere, Eko and all the rest. Then, I had to go to Zaria which was the first time I had to leave Lagos. I joined the train from Ebutte Meta. When I arrived, I met a couple of young people most of them were younger than me and they were raving to fly and do all sorts of things. Then I got interested and started forgetting about USA and going to study Electronics or Electrical Engineering. I did the interview and scaled. I think in my set, about 6,000 applied and 210 of us were called to Zaria in three batches. I was in Batch C, 70 in my set and 18 of us were eventually successful. That was in 1974. Then we were all called in January 1975 when we had our convocation; 18 people were selected, 6,000 to 210 and then 18. In those days, I did not know anybody; I mean you do not need to know anybody. It was so competitive for young men. The women had not started flying then. You have to try your best. In Zaria, if you do not pull your weight or do well, you will go. We did not pay a single kobo. We did our best and they now distributed all of us to the stakeholders: some to Nigeria Airways, British Helicopters, etc. The process then was such that you would be the best irrespective of who your parents were, and by that, we were able to do our best and produced the best material to train. The success rate was so high. At that time, the United Nations was still running it; because of that we had a lot of foreign instructors. It was later they started nationalising the process. I and five others were sponsored by the Federal Government through the school to go to Oxford Air School in England to study instructors.
Nigeria got independence in 1960. But it was in December 1959, at the 12th Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in San Diego, California, USA, that an idea was muted for an Aviation Training Centre for West Africa. Nigeria had no say because then, we were still under colonial rule. The following year, Nigeria was able to bid for the centre to be sited in country. Because of the topography and the number of flying hours available, Zaria was chosen to host the school. That is how it got to be sited here. It became a project between the Federal Government, the United Nations through its organ the UNDP and ICAO. Nigeria approached the UN through the UNDP for expert advice on how to set it up and so it became a joint project. Between that time and 1974 they started adding it up. The full handover was completed in 1978. From the purchase of land (we still have the receipts for this land), the UN guided the programme to full operations. The UN supervised the trainings, constructions, acquisition of land –everything. The equipment we have today started after the handover to the FG in 1978. So when the school started, it was just all whites: instructors, personnel and everything. But then the succession plan was on from day one for Nigerians to take over. They started training Nigerians to take over and part of that plan which I benefited too, was to become an instructor. They trained many of us to take over from them. But because of the many areas, particularly the flying students, we were so young, adventurous, nobody wanted to stay, so we all rushed to Nigeria Airways after serving out our bond with Zaria in 1980, two or three months after, we all rushed to Nigeria Airways. That’s how it was. But it was a first-class institution that you could compare to anyone or any other of its kind in the world. It was based on the programmes of Oxford Air Academy in England and even most of the exams I sat for were all British exams. The United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority supervised my training and the exams because Nigeria was not capable at the time. All our researches, testing and everything were all conducted by the UK CAA.
As a student we were always on the edge, particularly in the Flying School. You had to maintain a particular standard performance for you to remain in that school. Very often, when you are in the classroom, they would bring a brown envelope for one of us to leave. But I was lucky in my own set; we all passed and moved on. It was not easy; a lot of hard work was required. I am talking from the angle of a pilot student. We had other schools. Presently, NCAT has about five schools, flying school where they train pilots, the aircraft maintenance school to train engineers for aeroplanes and pilots to fly. The telecommunication school where they train engineers to maintain navigational aids to move from point A to B and the air traffic control schools where they train controllers. It is only the students in the flying school that go round to know everything that is going on in all the other schools. He is the last man standing in safety. That is, the last man for defence against any accident because if he makes any mistake that’s an accident. Do not forget that in aviation there is no accident until the pilot gets involved. The moment an aeroplane starts moving on its own power, there must be a pilot involved and that is where and when you have accidents. So pilots’ training is so rigorous and all the curriculum of all the other schools must be covered.
When I left NCAT, I went to the Nigeria Airways as a co-pilot and rose, career-wise, from there. Because of my background as an instructor it helped me a lot compared to my colleagues, including those that were in my class, in my own course, but were not instructors. So the airline created another cadre for us. We were not only line pilots. I became an instructor even within the airline and that helped me a lot in the sense that a career had already been charted for me right from Zaria. That career followed me all the way to places I had worked. I left Zaria, went to Nigeria Airways, rose to become a captain. I was given another cadre as an instructor because I had the ability to pass on what I know to others. They called it training the trainer. I left my colleagues and started rising because I was an instructor; I was both a Line Captain and a Training Captain. Eventually, as luck would have it, I became a Fleet Captain. I was at a time, the manager of the largest fleet in Nigeria Airways – the Boeing 737 for many years. From there, I left for Saudi Arabia Airlines (Saudiair) to fly. I was now flying the biggest aeroplane for the first time in my life but as a Captain. I did not go through any hierarchy. Usually, you go through as a co-pilot. I just went and rose to fly the Airbus. I was now employed because of my background as an instructor, examiner and line captain. All that attracted them to me. They offered me something good. Unfortunately, I did not stay there long enough because of the culture. I got an offer in the United Kingdom, this time to fly cargo. I never flew cargo before even though the Nigeria Airways had cargo planes. I now discovered a new phase of flying. I never thought I would fly cargo, so I fell in love with it immediately I started. It took me to more places than where you carry passengers to. I was able to fly almost every part of the world. It was very interesting, but even then in Das Air Cargo, I was flying out of Gatwick airport in England. I did that for so many years, 11 to 12 years. I became a training captain in DAS because of my background. When a friend of mine became the rector in Zaria in 2007, he invited me to join him. From there it was coming back home. He told me that the Zaria I knew had gone down, the standards were not encouraging. They had stopped flying for so many years, about 10 years. Most of the instructors had left because of the FG’s dilly-dallying. He specifically asked me to come and help as the Head of Flying School. I did some recruitment, and equally trained. I did that with them for about four years. I left to do one other thing I have never done, the regulatory side. So I joined the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). I was trained as a Government Safety Inspector; most of the training was done by ICAO even though it was conducted both locally and overseas. I became Flight Operations Inspector. It was another interesting part of my life as a regulator. Today, I am back again as a service provider. So I have tested every aspect of flying, aviation, regulatory, training. In training we just mould a virgin into an aviator.
I feel elated. It is –I don’t know –, I will call