AOn the ground as in the air, each pilot has his role, his score. On the ground, the welcome was perfect from the nine members of the Patrouille de France (PAF) but also from the mechanics and management. In total, the PAF is made up of around 70 people all year round. Friday October 4, eleven tricolor Alphajets were lined up on the tarmac of the AIA Aulnat (63). The aeronautics industrial workshop (1,400 employees) maintains Air and Space Force aircraft. That day, the Patrouille de France had set its wings in the Auvergne capital in anticipation of its participation in the Cervolix meeting in Issoire, a few kilometers away. Around ten people were invited to the preparation briefing. In his mission, each pilot indicates the context of the training to come on the event site: weather, location, terrain features, safety instructions, fallback routes, release of an aircraft in the event of of anomaly of it…
The score
In a religious silence, for which everyone was invited to turn off their phone, Commander Julien Decorte launched “the music”, the moment when each pilot repeats his part to the sound of the leader’s voice. After hours of training, the team members imbued the intensity of the voice, its rhythm. “It is she who guides us without us having to look at the plane in front or to the side,” explains Commander Nicolas Desagulier, left interior accompanied by his successor. We are all in the tempo by maneuvering with the tip of the thumb in impulses on the stripe” (button on the top of the control stick). Everything happens at 500 km/h to draw the figures in a plume of blue-white-red smoke.
Following the leader’s instructions, everyone mentally repeated the sequence, once again, in real time during the performance. A few minutes after this mental rehearsal, the pilots took their seats in their aircraft to the deafening whistle of the nine Alphajets, accompanied for Cervolix by an even noisier and much more powerful Rafale as it will demonstrate upon takeoff. The Alphajets took to the air in position and in two groups which very quickly found themselves in the sky. It’s already the show. An hour later, they were back from Issoire after the practical exercise.
In total confidence
Each year, out of ten to thirty applications, only three new teammates join the Patrouille de France. They come from Air Force combat units with at least 1,300 flight hours. Most have already intervened in combat for external operations. They are all officers.
“The choice is made by co-option more on feeling and psychology because we already know the pilot’s experience through each person’s service record,” reveals Commander Desagulier. We must have complete trust among ourselves. The same goes for mechanics who choose the pilot for whom they will carry out checks and control of the aircraft. With the end of the season, winter preparation begins for six months with the integration of new people, changes of positions according to seniority and the taking of office of the new leader. It is up to the “scavenger” placed behind the leader in the flight formation to take charge of the Patrouille de France for a year. During this phase, training is carried out at the rate of two flights per day and two physical work sessions, on the Salon-de-Provence base. In addition to being elite pilots, members of the PAF are also high-level athletes with impeccable condition. Then came outings to meetings in France and abroad, major events such as the opening of the Paris Olympic Games, the July 14 ceremonies… An ambassadorial role assumed by the members of the PAF in a military career in the service of the country. “Like the others, it was a childhood dream for me to be a pilot of the Patrouille de France and today an honor to be part of it,” admits Commander Desagulier who will be “solo” at the tail of the patrol for his last year. Next year, for the 80th anniversary of the 1945 armistice, will the French patrol, headed by Commander Richard, fly over the Cantal skies? Robert Malbec, a former air force officer from Murat, is working on this.
