AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018 - 54

French connection
Packing up airplanes for their journey to the United States
January 14, 2018, Chateaudun
Air Base, France: The young
French airman threw a lever
and the massive 200-ton
door began to side open on
the enormous, Cold-War-era,
reinforced steel and concrete
alert hangar. There they
stood, two to a row going
back as far as the eye could
see in the dim light-Epsilons.
This was a moment of truth
for us because five months
earlier when our group of
nine pilots had all committed to these Socata TB30s,
we were buying a "pig in a
poke," an airplane we had not
laid eyes on. I walked deeper
and deeper into the hangar,
looking for serial number 120,
and there it was, all the way
back in the last row. A wave

of excitement mixed with
relief flowed through me-the
airplanes looked as though
if a klaxon alert horn were
sounded, we could jump in,
strap in, and take to the air.
This batch of 19 airplanes,
all manufactured in the late
1980s, had been in climatecontrolled storage, with
engines pickled, for 10 years.
Ten were destined for the
United States, and nine would
be based in France, with six
of those allocated to the
Breitling Jet Team. These
airframes became available
because, for the French Air
Force, it was time to move on
to newer, more modern equipment-the Grob-120A and the
Pilatus PC-21. Only 32 TB30s
remain in active service with
THE PILOTS GET A

wing spar bolts. The small, aft
bolts came out easily; it was
the two hefty main spar wing
bolts that sometimes proved
challenging. Those steel bolts
are a tapered design, fitted
into a split-sleeve bushing.
Some would come out fairly
easily; others required much
huffing and puffing, and still
others were stubborn to the
point of requiring encouragement from a massive sledge
hammer and 30-pound steel
bar, or a custom-made
extraction tool.
Halfway through day two,
three airframes were apart,
with wings snugged into
transport jigs, and wheeled
jigs installed on the fuselages. With the learning curve
behind the team, the pace
quickened. By day five, nine
more airframes were disassembled and jigged, with one
stubborn main-spar bolt in
the last airframe holding up
progress at quitting time.
By midday, day eight, we
strapped the last airframe
into a 40-foot shipping
container and sealed it up for
its seaborne journey to the
United States. -Mike Filucci

MIKE FILUCCI

look at their lot of
19 Epsilons, retired
from the French
military and kept in
a climate-controlled
hangar. Ten of the
airplanes were then
disassembled in the
hangar for transport
to the United States.

the French today, and they are
scheduled for replacement
within the next two years.
Now, it was time to set
to work dismantling the
Epsilons. We had additional
volunteer pilots and mechanics and the French Air Force
disassembly manual to work
from-first, off came fairings
and access panels. Next, the
horizontal stabilizer, followed
by the wings. If only it were
that simple. The wings proved
to be the most complex
with all the connections to
be unhooked: brake lines,
hydraulic-gear actuation
lines, fuel lines, fuel-vent lines,
emergency gear-extension
lines, trim tab control line, aileron control rods, grounding
straps, and, finally, the three
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2018

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