Faced with modern Airbus factories in Blagnac, near Toulouse, where latest generation planes are assembled, enthusiasts save breakage from old devices, dating for some from the 1930s.
"Before trying to make the apparatus pretty (...) work is to save it, to strengthen it, because there is often a lot of corrosion (...) If we do not do that,The apparatus is condemned, ”explains Jean-Claude Cathala, vice-president of old wings.The association, located against the Ultramodern factories of Airbus in Blagnac, near Toulouse, restores old aircraft deemed good for breakage.
Among the 120 aircraft in the collection, mostly sold by Austria, Germany, the United States or the French army, some have been catering for more than 20 years, such as a Breguet 765 Sahara Deux-Ponts."He looked like a ruin" when he arrived from Évreux after five and a half days of road in 1986, specifies Bernard Mattos, in front of this 29-meter-long and 45-meter-of-scale post-war period..
For this member of old wings, which brings together sixty enthusiasts, including many aviation retirees, restore this steel monster, it's like mounting "a big model".After changing the cockpit windows, replaced the switches, this former Airbus engineer is working to reproduce a rebeca.It was an instrument used during the war to "drop the paratroopers precisely", he explains, relying on a "photo of the time" unearthed in a manual of steering.The two volumes of a hundred pages never leave the bag of the sixties who, in the evening, continues to work "from the house".
Redo the missing parts
For years, on the other side of the road, he tested the planes before their first flights.Today, it restores ground -nailing devices, but accessible to the public."I am looking for a way to do as close as possible to reality, even if I see the difference, the details," he said, adjusting his thin glasses.
If members are counting on word of mouth and the network of enthusiasts to find missing parts, they are sometimes forced to redo those who have become imposed.The template of two-people being too impressive for the workshop, which already houses five other devices, it was necessary to dismantle the floors in order to restore them in the shelter.
A mixture of wooden smells and oil floats in this hangar, from which a McDonnell F-101 B Voodoo has just released.Fifteen years were necessary to restore, in the colors of the Minnesota National Guard, state of the northeast of the United States, this 1950s hunter loaned by the US Air Force Museum.
Outside, the wings of transport aircraft borders on the propellers of military helicopters.Luciano Angeli came from the mezzolombardo pilot school in north of Italy, to see the "inspiring" work of the old wings."All planes have a story.Their lives do not stop at their function, their mission, "said this future 18 -year -old helicopter driver, admiring a Mirage III C of the manufacturer Dassault dating from 1956.This other hunter landed in the 1980s at Blagnac airport, to never take off again.
Inspiration and transmission
The open -air museum is teeming with anecdotes around planes, such as Deltaviex, with wings at the tail of swallow: during its tests in Brétigny, Essonne, in the 1950s, the National Office of Studies andaeronautical research (Onera) asked employees to draw the curtains to keep the secret.
"Transmit passion", "see the face of children playing at the helm", also motivates Bernard Mattos to come once a week to the old wings.And the next generation seems ready: students from twelve Toulouse high schools will rebuild a 28 late, thanks to which Jean Mermoz has for the first time crossed the South Atlantic in 1930 with mail.
It is a question of "finding the inspiration with the pioneers of the Aéropostale", promoting the "transmission between an era rich in innovation" and "ours, which must also be", explains Christophe Chaffardon, Director Education,Sciences and culture at the Musée de l'Envol des Pionniers, initiator of the project.This five-year-old project must start by the end of 2022 on the site of the old Latécoère factories, southeast of Toulouse, where this legendary plane was built a century ago.
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