French fliers in Dayton debut
‘It’s a kind of ballet,’ Breitling Jet Team pilot says of maneuvers.
For air show pilot Georges-Eric Castaing, flying with the Breitling Jet Team is an aerial ballet with a little bit of rock and roll.
The former French Air Force fighter pilot flies the No. 5 jet on the seven-member civilian jet team making its debut at the Vectren Dayton Air Show today and Sunday.
The black jets, home based in Dijon, France, are on a firstever visit to the U.S. and Canada this season and the air show at the Dayton International Airport is the sixth stop on the tour.
“Dayton of course is a big, big air show in the U.S. so for Breitling, for us ... and for Dayton, I guess, it was a big deal to all of us because the Breitling Jet Team is for the first year and for the first time in the U.S.,” he said Friday, wearing a black flight suit and standing on a tarmac near the jets.
The Czech-built L-39 Albatros is the team’s star performer. The pilots fly between
300 mph to 400 mph and from 250 feet to 4,500 feet above the ground during their acrobatic routines. They may pull as much as eight “Gs,” or eight times the pull of gravity and fly within three meters of each other.
“It’s a kind of ballet,” he said. “Very smooth maneuvers.”
The highly precise flying, with maneuvers such as barrel rolls and loops, makes way to solo demonstrations and tightly choreographed splitting formations. Or Castaing says, “it’s a little bit more rock and roll.”
“In a way, I can say that all the maneuvers are quite difficult for us but always safe, of course,” he said. “We train for that. We have a lot of fun all the time.”
This is the largest civilian jet team in the world.
None of the pilots had flown the L-39 before joining, he said.
“It’s a nice aircraft to fly,” he said. “...When you fly it, you have to be very concentrated. The pilots, we love that jet.”
Castaing, 43, flew the Alpha Jet for three years with the French Air Force’s Patrouille de France, the French equivalent to the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds. The 24year military veteran also piloted Mirage F1 and 2000 fighter jets. When he retired, he had logged about 5,000 flight hours before joining the civilian team.
“I’m very, very lucky to be able to fly in jets as a civilian pilot — to fly acrobatics and formations,” he said. “That’s very unique. (The) Breitling Jet Team is the only way to do that in the civilian world as professionals, so it’s my full-time job and I’m very, very lucky to do that.”