Winter And A Stormy Paris Trip

The winter was now in full swing, it has been snowing for days, the rivers were frozen, it was 05h00 and after scraping off the ice on my car’s windscreen, I was on the slippery road to Rotterdam Airport to fly a charter to Milan Malpensa Airport.

- Peter Kerckhoffs

I was founder and co-owner of Travelair Air Charters in The Netherlands. I know the name is not quite original but it had to do. At that time we owned only one aircraft, a Piper PA31P, a pressurised cabin class aircraft with awfully powerful and expensive Lycoming geared 425Hp engines. Surely a mistake to buy this type, but it was cheap to buy at Hfl. 300 000.00. It was the 80’s, the currency was still Guilders. The previous owner of Oxford, England was glad to let it go. The discussions with my bank took a good 2 months, and then we were the proud owners of PH-DDH.

I slithered on the half frozen road and snow. The freezing level was not difficult to ascertain, it was right there at ground level. The village I lived in was 13 feet below sea level, Amsterdam Airport is 5 feet below sea level, but fortunately the dykes keep us dry. Our aircraft was parked outside so we had to be early, to remove snow and ice from wings and tail surfaces. We parked close to the avionics repair shop and they installed a 220 Volt connection to the outside of the aircraft. We put a heater with a timer in the cabin. By the time we arrived, at around 06h00, at least the inside was not like a freezer. Removing ice and snow is a cold job, with an outside temperature of minus 9C. Your hands become numb, until they start to thaw in the cabin and then they hurt. We ordered cans of coffee, tea and some sandwiches for the passengers at the airport restaurant. In that time, the airport fence was just a 1.20 meter high and it had gates, where everybody could walk through and wander around the airport. The notion of terrorists would not have crossed anyone's mind.