The fascination shared by the challenge of piloting an aeroplane, an acrobatics jet or a pre-war biplane and that of driving a car like the Ferrari, as told by one of Ferrari’s most fearless customers: Jacques Krine
Wings and wheels, turns and bends, nose-up and braking, diving and cornering: emotions that are different but similar in their essence. History tells us that the Prancing Horse symbol which distinguishes Ferraris throughout the world has its origins in the insignia that decorated the Spad S.XIII of the Italian aviator Francesco Baracca, even if using brilliant red as a combat livery was the idea of a German ace, Manfred von Richthofen – better known as the Red Baron – with his Fokker DR1 triplane. This period of airborne knights turning war into a kind of Renaissance tournament is long gone, but its legacy is still with us because of the unbroken link forged by technology and courage between two worlds that appear far apart. What connects aircraft pilots with racing car drivers? What do the heroes of air combat have in common with the aces of the steering wheel? Undoubtedly, it’s the subtle and intimate pleasure that comes from mastering technology even in difficult and unforeseeable situations; audacity fuelled by passion and instigated by the desire for supremacy, the result of the constant search for the adrenaline that comes from the challenge with oneself. This relationship with technology and risk is accompanied by a lightness of touch that is elegant, precise, finely judged and millimetre-accurate, or instinctive and yet just right. The man who pilots or drives a complex and sophisticated machine ends up by becoming at one with it, forming a whole that, inevitably, brings glory to the greatest. The names Francesco Baracca and Manfred von Richthofen, Juan Manuel Fangio and Ayrton Senna rank alongside those of astronaut Neil Armstrong and Michael Schumacher, the first man to win seven Formula One world titles. This world carved from moments of glory, but also from inevitable risks that may lead to the ultimate sacrifice, creates a hinterland of memories fuelled by museums and collections that preserve the machines that were once protagonists but have now become objects of curiosity for visitors. Just as there are museums of racing and production cars – think of the Galleria Ferrari at Maranello – there are also magnificent collections of aircraft that have played a part in the history of aviation. in France, around 60km south of the French capital at the edge of a tiny grass aerodrome – like the ones used at the beginning of the last century – grey metal hangars that seem to have come from another time hide a real marvel. The aeronautical association amicale Jean-Baptiste Salis at Cerny was founded in 1929 and continues to ignite the passion of its members and give life to the Musée Volant (flying museum) at the La Ferté-Alais aerodrome.
Because the wonderful thing is that this is not a museum of memory but a place where at any time aircraft may be pushed onto the strip and take flight with the agility of former times. From the lightweight wood-and-fabric Dragonfly planes of the early flying pioneers (Louis Blériot, Morane H), we pass through the years to reach the profusion of air cavalry formed by the Corsair, Mustang P-51D, Curtiss P-40 and Douglas and-4N Skyraider. The museum houses around 80 aircraft, offering a journey from World War I to WWII, travelling through the glory years of aviation; a journey that also includes private aircraft, sculpted in art deco lines for an aerodynamic efficiency revealed in their elegant forms. This can be seen in the amazing Stinson Reliant, a single-engine plane of rare elegance that in the ’30s was the equivalent of our present-day Falcon 900: the preferred aircraft of stars of stage and screen as well as successful industrialists; an object capable of tempting even al Capone.
It’s called a flying museum precisely because the special feature of this collection is that it doesn’t remain static. These planes are regularly used for the pleasure of the association’s members and owners, to take part in air shows, or even (very often) to play the role of consultant and supplier to film productions that need period aircraft. Not to mention its own fabulous air show held in summer every year, attracting around 50,000 spectators. Among the members of the Amicale are some Ferrari clients. One of them is called Jacques Krine, a truly expert pilot, as you might guess from his substantial moustache. He is a former colonel of the French air forces and today leads the French aerobatics team. Krine is a well-known flying ace, but he is also deeply passionate about cars, particularly Ferraris. He has owned several models (348, 365 GT, Testa Rossa, 512 TR) and currently drives a beautiful 328 that he has modified with stainless steel, aviation-style exhausts to enhance the sound. It’s a modification he had already carried out on his 365 GT. ‘For me, a Ferrari is like an opera singer. After owning several Porsches I converted – and I believe that late vocations are the best ones. At the wheel of a car from Maranello I’ve discovered the entire character of a people. So, with these modified exhausts, the 365 GT sang wonderfully. I also took off the huge air filters to free the intake pipes and be able to fully experience the noise of the intake and output. A Ferrari engine – please forgive the comparison – is like a woman to whom you know you are giving pleasure: it begins with low tones but gets increasingly near the top notes as it warms up. It’s fantastic because, depending on its condition, the voice can be rough or scream sharply. It can be a tiger or a siren, it’s a marvel.’ Jacques ‘Jack’ Krine was born in 1944 at Corné, near Le Mans. As a small boy he was fascinated by aviation and cars. The interest in cars was stoked from the trackside at epic meetings of the 24 Hours of Le Mans; in aviation because flying had always been his dream and the subject of his games. ‘Perhaps I’d been mentally marked,’ he says, ‘when, at the age of six months, I survived allied bombing while my family was spending the weekend on a little river beach next door to a German airfield!’ At the age of 15 he gained his pilot’s licence in a Piper J3 Cub, as well as a glider licence, thanks to a grant from the French air force.
He was a daredevil from an early age. At 19 he set to work, joining the air force and training on a succession of aircraft: the North American T-6, then the Fouga CM.170 Magister and the Lockheed T-33. In 1965 he gained a jet-fighter pilot’s licence in a Mystère IV. It was an exemplary career, even if Krine’s unruly character often led him into conflict. When he was posted to be a security officer he shocked his colonel by pinning up a notice in his office saying: ‘Rules are for mediocrities. They prevent the incapable from making mistakes, and annoy those who know what they’re doing.’ The colonel was not pleased, but the notice stayed there until Krine finished his posting.
He was always a volunteer for the most dangerous missions, attracted by risk and the desire to challenge himself, and reached the rank of colonel, running the aerobatics team and piloting the ‘soloist’ aircraft. His career also saw him at a UFO observation centre, before he moved onto civil aviation to become a pilot with air France. But he always spent time with old aircraft and military jets, taking part in more than 400 air shows. He has also crashed four times. It’s a full life, a passion never mastered, which he himself calls a drug. none of his crashes (all of them caused by mechanical failure) has subdued him. ‘I experienced the four events in different ways. But they were all intense,’ Krine recalls. ‘The first time, at the last moment before the crash, I said to myself, “no, not me, not now”. The second time, I said to myself, “good god, this is my day. I’m going”, as if I wanted to reject fate and propose death as my own choice. The third time, right here at La Ferté-Alais, I was flung out of the plane and people saw me moving around as if I were struggling with someone. In my subconscious, in fact, that’s what I was doing, struggling with my guardian angel and asking him why he’d once again kept me alive. The fourth time, I simply told myself that it was time to stop all this foolery because things were getting out of hand.’ The pilot continues, ‘Life is strange. One’s relation to death is an individual matter. For me, death is something in the normal run of things. I’ve always been attracted to risk and when I started out my only fear was of committing a professional error and being thrown out of this career, out of these wonderful machines that I adore. Flying is my nature. Challenge, too. I would have liked to have been there with the early pioneers like Blériot, [Jean] Mermoz, Roland Garros, to take part in the birth of aviation. They invented everything at that time.’
Even more than this, Krine would have liked to have fought in World Wars I and II. ‘I would certainly have died gloriously and that would have been wonderful,’ he says. But I missed out on being cast in the right role. During my military service I took part in air combat over Sarajevo. Fortunately I never killed, because during the Cold War I was also part of the nuclear deterrent force with the atomic bomb – in case of possible Russian attack – and using it would have posed real problems with my conscience.
‘My true nature is for air combat, which is the highest form of flight; it’s like a Formula One Grand Prix, but more bloody because death can easily underlie defeat. Combat teaches. I give thanks to my instructors, people who fought in World War II and the Indochina War; they taught me the habits of simple, basic actions, things that have been anaesthetised out of today’s aircraft that are too computerised and assisted. When I see certain aeroplane accidents happen because the crew react badly to problems such as damage to a Pitot tube, as happened recently, I tell myself that something’s not right. We can’t forget we’re human just because a computer gives you the wrong information.’
A pilot and at the same time a poet, Krine describes his passion with care. ‘The good fortune of a life is to have a goal to achieve. It can be creating a stamp collection or flying. The important thing is to have something that corresponds to your desires and passions and so to have the energy to do things, and do them well. Of course, with one’s allowance of difficult moments, since there is no happiness without suffering and no suffering without happiness. Sometimes, moving from one to the other, it’s painful, but it is through suffering that we build something. ‘When I fly, it’s ecstasy for me. It is the only time in my life when everything is in harmony: body, nerves, neuromotor system, brain, thoughts, emotions. Everything goes in slow motion. There are times when I have the feeling of being hidden inside my helmet because I live in a world all of my own. [Ayrton] Senna used to say he was in a state of ecstasy when he was driving and that’s how flying is for me, it’s a “light shining in a world of play”. That’s true even with a passenger plane, but the extreme emotions, the most intense pleasures – almost orgasmic – are those lived through in combat, because you have to win. not everyone is like this, but elite pilots certainly are. They need it, it’s in our genes, it’s the legacy of the dominant male in the animal world. Even if, in fact, all men are different. ‘When I’m flying I’m super-calm. And the trickier the situation, the calmer I become. I move into operational mode and this is certainly what has saved me up to now, allowing me to do the right things at the decisive moment. When it’s a question of saving your skin you reach yet another level and it’s a moment of complete ecstasy. For me, flying a plane is a gift and I feel at ease at the controls of any aircraft, without thinking about it, instinctively. It’s a little like certain musicians who have music inside themselves. Fear must never get the upper hand. Those who begin to feel afraid are done for, as in racing. ‘When I was a fighter pilot, the possibility of death excited me. I was a little crazy but it was also a time when to challenge death was valued; it was an honour, a sign of courage. Nowadays, death is seen as defeat. The will to win, the daring that impels me, would today be seen in a dim light in the air force as well, and I would be considered to be a potential danger, not as in the past. For me, audacity is an admirable quality if we want to discover our own limits and to know more about ourselves; and if death comes, then we accept it. ‘I’ve always loved wrestling and I’ve practiced many martial arts. I’m not nasty or naturally violent but I am extremely competitive. In my opinion, combat can be viewed as an extreme sport at the point where one can practice it in training conditions, that is without real firing but with simulated firing. Otherwise it’s War and not sport. Racing, on the other hand, is only ever sport, even though you can die at the wheel of a Formula One car. But even they accept it. ‘Look at the ecstasy of a driver when he wins a race: a microsecond of total ecstasy which he would have given his life to live through. Races may not be the same as they once were – today they’re more scientific – but the satisfaction of victory is always the same, you can see it in their eyes. It’s knowing how to take risks, that is the soul of driving on the ground and piloting in the air. Man’s greatness emerges through precisely these kinds of challenges, which are challenges for pilots and also for engineers. ‘People like Blériot, Morane and the rest needed to be full of questions: it was always necessary to find new technical solutions to improve ideas, reliability and performance. The grey matter was at work. and in the military world, war is war. In my view, as a fighter pilot it’s in that situation that man’s most extraordinary qualities find their highest expression. I repeat, it’s the equivalent of a Grand Prix, but with a tougher edge to it, with the reverse of the medal.’ What does it feel like to change from an Airbus or a jet fighter to the old planes of World War I? ‘In my opinion all pilots should test themselves by flying a glider, it’s a formative experience’ Krine explains. ‘Old aircraft, with no electronics, show up the pilot.
There are no anaesthetics as there are in modern machines with their automatic systems and controls. If you don’t respect their way of flying, old aircraft first of all give you a warning and then they strike you a brutal blow.’ Do fighter pilots have a personal combat style, just as racing drivers generally have a distinct driving style? ‘Definitely. I fly in a very gentle way, in terms of a car I’d say “neat”. When I’m flying I make love to space and I caress the air. But I’m also capable of being very violent if it’s necessary.’ There’s a kind of legacy of chivalry: ‘if there were pits where, after combat, we could meet with enemy pilots, we’d certainly go and have a drink together to discuss our experiences in a friendly manner. There is respect. And this really did happen in World War I when an enemy pilot was captured.’ Listening to this colonel speak of times past, sometimes he seems like an alien in a world that is ever more restricted and politically correct. By the way, I ask, how did things go with the UFOs, at 11pm on 23 September 1975 in the skies over Cambrai, northern France, in the Mirage IIIC? ‘It’s important to remember that it was in the middle of the Cold War. We were performing a night interception exercise on radar. A jet took off before and I had to intercept it. At a certain point, in the approach, an object appeared – oblong, oval, very bright. it was like the fuselage of a large aircraft without wings, without a cockpit or tail, but with many portholes from which there came a very strong and very strange light. It was between me and the other jet. I called flight control to ask what it was and they told me that even on their radar there was nothing at all showing up. Then I called my colleague on the radio and he confirmed that he’d seen the same thing that I had. At night it’s difficult to make out dimensions, but it seemed pretty big, I’d say around 40 to 50 metres long.’
Krine continues: ‘After another exchange with flight control we tried to catch up with this unidentified flying object, but it pulled away and disappeared at an unheard of speed. We resumed our exercise and a little later on the object reappeared. It observed us from quite nearby but there was nothing threatening about it so we had no choice but to try to intercept it and, once again, we saw it disappear at blinding speed. Everything was repeated for a third time. in the end I and my colleague in the other plane decided not to make a report, fearing we’d be taken for madmen or be grounded and that the matter would be classified “top secret” with all the complications that would involve us in.
‘At that period of the Cold War the UFO question was highly sensitive in military circles, since the Americans were trying to convince the Russians that they had already had contact with aliens (possibly leading the Russians to draw the conclusion that the Americans had received some kind of advanced technology or other). A few years later we spoke about these events and our account was classified as highly interesting by specialists in the subject. Personally, I don’t want to get into speculation about what it might have been, but I know that we were trained to identify and intercept and that this aircraft was not identifiable – it resembled nothing known – its performance outstripped anything known even today and, for me, there wasn’t the slightest chance of intercepting it. The best fighter plane in the world now would appear stationary compared to that performance. We were two pilots in two different planes. We observed the same thing at the same time but from two different angles and on three separate occasions, all of which excludes the possibility of us having had the same hallucination at the same time. Full stop.’ Finally, I want to know, what is there in common between aircraft – real ones, I mean, not those crammed with electronics – and Krine’s Ferrari? ‘A lot, a great deal, on sent la bête,’ he replies: you feel the beast that you must confront, that you must subdue and tame, but without ever forgetting that a wild beast can be highly dangerous if you don’t manage it in the right way.
PUBLISHED IN HOME, PEOPLE BY PAOLO BOMBARA ON 06.01.2011
Credit: Ferrari S.p.A. (www.ferrari.com)
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