24 Vol. 10 / No. 2 / February 2018 Global Aviator
By: Peter KerckhoffsMemories relived
After leaving KLM in
1971, where I worked as
a Royal Class steward,
I joined IBM International
and during the next
seven years I acquired
the majority of my
pilot licences.My first aviation job as a
commercial pilot was as an aircraft
sales representative for a Belgian
company. I was approached by a
gentleman who had just received his
private pilot licence and wanted to buy
a single engine aircraft, a cheap one,PIPER SENECA
Selling Aircraft
in the Rich
Man's world!
he said. The company had a trade-in
which nobody wanted to even look
at: a Wassmer super quatre vingt-et-
un, or as we would say Wassmer 4-21.
An aircraft built in the late sixties, it
was made of wood with fabric cover.
The PH-PUT had 5 seats, a Lycoming
250hp a cruise of 160Kts, retractable
undercarriage and variable prop. All-
in-all a potent single engine aircraft.
I promised the potential client
I would visit him with the aircraft
that Saturday at Seppe airfield, a 600
meters grass strip in the south of The
Netherlands. After arriving I had coffee
with the client, his wife and two friends
who all wanted to go with. I thought for
a moment about the 600 metres runwaylength. I made my first mistake by
loading them all in and up we went. The
noise of the engine, vibrating through
the wood structure and finding no
restriction in level thanks to the fabric
covering, was horrendous. We would
make a little trip to Rotterdam Airport,
23 miles north. After ten minutes, I had
to change the frequency to Rotterdam
Tower and the very moment I dialled in
the frequency, all hell broke loose. A loud
bang, followed by the engine spraying
an oil layer over the windscreen. My
first – Pavlovian - reaction was to reset
the frequency. I know this sounds
stupid, daft and not very logical,
but that’s what I did. I turned the
aircraft back to Seppe and the decision
making process was in full mode.
Should I land the aircraft in the
first available field, which Holland
has in abundance, or should I carry
on to Seppe? Whilst contemplating
the safe outcome of my first real
emergency landing and the associated
confrontation with the CAA, it was
mainly my ego which spurred me to
continue on home. We made it, just!
It turned out that the oil line from the
engine to the governor had broken.
We were shaken, but happy to
be safe on the ground. Obviously I
had given-up on the sales talk, who
wouldn’t? However, to my surprise
the client regarded the whole ‘incident’
as proof of the survivability of the
aircraft and if I promised to renew the