Philippe Boutry Pilot Philippe Boutry on risks over the North Atlantic Interview Gerard David

Philippe Boutry   Where do you live? I live in Marseille, in the southern part of France.   How long have you lived there? Since 1990. Before that I was in Brittany in the French Navy.   When did you arrive in NY? We flew in on Monday the 2nd of June on Air France. Our helicopter, L'Esprit d'Intertechnique 1997 flew on an Air France 747 cargo airplane.   What do you do for recreation? I enjoy riding horses and sailing.   How long have you been flying helicopters? For 20 years now.   What is the longest flight that you have flown before this one? The longest flight that have I flown before this one was about 6 hours on a ferry flight from France to another destination in Europe.   What do you think will be the most difficult part of this flight? The most difficult part of this flight could be the weather conditions over the North Atlantic, in the case of very rough seas for refueling or in case we encounter too much headwind.   What things besides piloting will you do on the long flight? During the flight we will be involved in navigation and also in radio communications with the press.   Do you have video equipment on the helicopter? Yes, the helicopter carries video equipment and also satellite communications, so we shall have a lot to do, in fact to take pictures and take film and also to have communication with a lot of people.   What is your schedule for sleep? We have time in our schedule for sleep for maybe 40 minutes at a time. One person will sleep for 40 minutes and then the other person will sleep for 40 minutes. Doctors tell us that 40 minute increments are the best amount of sleep in which you can recover if you need to sleep a bit but don't want to sleep too long.   Why attempt this helicopter flight? We want to fly this helicopter attempt to prove that a single engine Eurocopter Astar is a helicopter in which we are very confident. We also want to prove that this helicopter is very able, and in fact easily able to do such a performance.   When did you first decide that you wanted to fly? At the very beginning I was a boy. At the age of 15 I wanted to be a Naval officer, so later I joined the Naval Academy and sometime later when I was a Naval officer I went into naval aviation specializing in helicopters.   You mention "weather" as being a possible challenge in the flight, what else do you think will be very difficult about flying over the North Atlantic? Well, once again my main concern is weather. Otherwise we are very confident about the helicopter. Of course, we have to stay awake for maybe 30 hours, if the flight is a bit longer than we expected, but the main concern is weather, really.   How difficult is the refueling procedure? The refueling procedure is not very difficult - we just have to go into hover when approaching the ship and fueling takes 5 minutes. We lower a fuel hose down and that is all. We also have to operate onboard switches, but this procedure is not difficult.   What is the total time for the refueling procedure? The actual refueling procedure will not be longer than 5 minutes. We have to get about 800 kilos of fuel and that will be done in 5 minutes. Of course we have to slow down approaching the refueling location, and we have to reel out the fuel line to the refuel crew, and then we have to leave the area and pick up speed - so maybe the total time will be 10 minutes from the very beginning of the deceleration to the end of that procedure.   During refueling which of you pilots the ship and which operates the refueling switches? During the refueling I will be the pilot and Mr. David will deal with the procedure itself. It is not possible to change those roles because all the devices involved in the refueling procedure are in the left seat of the helicopter.   How have you prepared yourself physically for this long flight? We haven't done much extra physical preparation. We have a doctor advising us, especially about food. Other than that we have done nothing unusual.   What type of food will you carry on the flight? I don't really know yet what kind of food we shall have, but the doctor said that eating caviar for example gives you the most energy from the smallest consumption. As a joke I can say we shall eat caviar.   What kind of mental preparation have you done for the flight? We have not done much mental preparation for the flight. I am a test pilot for Eurocopter so from time to time we have difficult flights to perform.   What was the first helicopter that you flew? The first helicopter I flew was an Alouette 2 from Eurocopter.   What would you like to say to the people from around the world reading about this flight? Two things. First, Eurocopter is very confident with the Astar helicopter, especially with this model which is equipped with a new engine. And also another point is that Eurocopter is a high technology company and we are proud to show that we are able to meet a technological challenge and also challenge a record.