Henri Guillaumet

Henri Guillaumet — PC-6 Porter

It is the first aircraft Foehn owned, and it came as a write-off — an airframe another operator had given up on after an accident. A sound one was beyond reach that first year: the savings covered a single machine, and a clean one would have left nothing to fly it with. So the broken one was bought, put on the line as soon as it was airworthy, and finished in the gaps between flights — a repair one week, another the next, whatever the evening allowed. It flew its first season in primer, red-oxide bare down one side; the paint could wait, the flying could not.

An aircraft rebuilt from a wreck and sent to fly the mountains carries the name of a man who opened his routes across them: Henri Guillaumet, who flew the mail over the Andes and, coming down there in winter, crossed the glacier on foot rather than lie down in the snow.

Today it flies out of Olbia, behind the larger aircraft on the island run: the passengers who would rather not wait, a handful at a time, to Elba and Oristano — short strips by the sea, approaches flown on needle and dial. Ten seats, and the kind of trip where ten is exactly the right number.