The Fouga CM170 "Magister" is a 1950s jet trainer known for its "butterfly" tail, its elegance in flight, and its ear shattering noise. The French air force formation aerobatic team (La Patrouille de France) used them as did the air forces of Ireland and Israel amongst others.
In many ways the Magister is comparable to the Cessna T37 "Tweety Bird" who's J69 engines were license built versions of the Turbomeca Maborés in the Fouga. These are very early axial jet engines making only about 880 lbs of thrust. (The aircraft in Gilles' review had the up-rated Maboré VIs of 1100 lbs thrust.)
Be sure to watch the video at the end of the article.
The Cactus Busters
by Gilles Tatry
We spent some time in Mojave across from Edwards AFB. Mojave has the air of a ghost town with convoys of rusty tank cars abandoned along the road. We had left the cold Pacific moisture behind us a long time ago and were now in the sun-baked western landscape: a stony desert dotted with low, dry bushes from which emerge several Joshua trees, kind of like large yucca rising ten feet high. During a pee break along the ribbon of black asphalt through the Mojave Desert to California City, we imagine the hidden rattlesnakes under the overheated stones … You feel "The Right Stuff", especially as a sinister black smoke rises from the horizon - I hope it is not of Aeronautical origin.
The airfield at California City seems deserted but we are surprised to discover five Fouga Magister jets parked behind the fence. They are lined up like a parade in the colors of the flight school, the Patrouille de France, and another in blue/yellow, and yet another in sparkling black, beautiful but I can not imagine the surface temperature under the blazing sun.
Fred is at the rendezvous. He has maintained many of the 108 Fougas that have been imported into the US (there were up to twelve in California City) over the last 20 years, and provides flight instruction to their owners.
We agree on the program: a low level sortie of forty minutes followed by twenty minutes of aerobatics. I want to discover the personality of this mythical plane that really made me dream when I was a kid.
Fred puts a stylish jacket over his flight suit, it is covered with rounded pockets containing survival and communication equipment. Our playground is a desert area equivalent to a triangle Lorient- Bordeaux-Paris. If we have to jump it will help locate us. I hesitate to dress in the same way because of the temperature but finally submit before his Cactus Buster Squadron patch, too cute!
Our Fouga is in the colors of the flight school, marked MB-315. A much elongated wing with a little sweep-back at the leading edge and a straight trailing edge, giving it a pretty appearance despite its exactly zero dihedral. Pretty tip-tanks, gently tapered, contain 250L of kerosene feeding the fuselage tank under pressure. The beautiful butterfly tail, high and slender with counter-balance weights mark the plane with an almost graceful elegance. The fuselage is long in the front with short landing gear that makes it looks like an aeronautical dachshund :)
Seen up close it is clear that this is not a flying club airplane, it really is designed as a fighter. It's sturdy, carefully constructed, and the interior is of military austerity. All black, big dials with real metal needles, lots of buttons on the ergonomic stick and big switches and controls scattered everywhere on the side consoles with no apparent logic, plus some levers along cockpit sides.
I am given a quick cockpit briefing: engine instrumentation, the startup procedure, the flaps and their indicator, the speed brakes, the pressurization system, emergency braking, emergency gear extension, the take-off sequence and bail-out procedures. Everything else I’ll work out in flight.
Getting in is easy because the fuselage is very low, but the position is confusing: you sit very upright on the parachute, the body perfectly vertical and I have to stretch to reach the stick. However the rudder pedals, even when adjusted fully forward, require me to fold up my legs.
The control stick travel is much greater in pitch (hinged on the floor the floor) that in roll (hinged halfway up the stick like a Spitfire).
As soon as Fred is installed we go!
"Battery ON", he yells to me, and I can barely hear through the headphones. OK, the big switch bottom right, I confirm him and the intercom comes to life. Now I can hear very loud and clear in the headphones.
Come on, we will start the left: I rotate the fuel control lever marked “Left” on the left cockpit wall, then move the start selector (on the right console) to the “left” position and hit the starter. At 1200 rpm we look for the small button on the fuel control lever and press it to energize the ignitors, all the while monitoring turbine temperatures. A 200 °C increase, the ignitor button is released and the engine continues its own. As the engine reaches 4000 rpm the starter switch is moved to neutral. Adjusted to 8,000 rpm we check the generator light has gone out.
The shrill whistle of the engine in the intercom is horrible!
Starting the right engine is just the same but with the “right” fuel lever on, and the starter switch in the “right” position. At 10,000 RPM the shrill whistling tears the ears, it's unbearable!
Fred adjusts the squelch on the intercom and suddenly, a miracle! No more engine noise, just his strong, clear voice. Phew! I was afraid...
Come on, there is no time to lose. We close the canopy by moving the sliding sleeves that lock the struts, allowing them to fold and gently close the plexiglass in its impressive machined metal frame. A quarter turn locking lever, a kind of horizontal red crank handle to the left and we do not forget to press the inflation seal button for pressurization. It is oddly placed in the portion of the locking handle, becoming visible once the canopy is locked.
The process continues. The pressurization is running on full cold air conditioning and the gyros are aligned.
Fred had me adjust the mirror so I could see that the spoilers on the wings are out. I seek the switch on the edge of the right fuel handle. A quick flick and blam! ... It moves with a snap like a guillotine. Better not get the fingers in the way.
It is a short taxi to the nearby runway. The brakes are released, and I expect that the Fouga will move right away, but no, nothing. I push the throttles delicately, we don’t rush turbines especially gas turbines from the hydro-mechanical regulator era. Still nothing, we do not move a bit. Did I forget something?
Fred overrides my modest throttle use. “We need 14 or 15000 RPM, then back to 10 or 11000 RPM as the plane begins to move.
Time to head for the taxiway, I quickly found that it will not be easy: the front wheel is not linked to the rudder so one steers with brakes, so it takes even more power to turn against brakes. I hate that about turbines. "Stop your hammering the pedals, it doesn't need it!" I know, but I can't control the pedals delicately with my legs folded up like this. I need them extended it for any sort of precision.
With 10,000 RPM we gallop along on the taxiway, with our butts close to the ground. I have the unpleasant feeling that it's going too fast for me, this machine that I have just started trying to tame. There is a good crosswind and the weathervane effect is noticeable, I have to brake left to hold the center line. Busy struggling with the brakes I hear Fred vaguely muttering some vital actions quickly, it ends with "Well, I have my pressures and temperatures, Fouga 315 Mike Bravo, lining up and take-off runway 06”
"Already? No warm-up time?" "No no, it's okay, let's go!”
Well, go ... line up, full throttle and brakes off, it goes slowly, it does not push very hard - and yet those are Marboré VIs! (More powerful than early examples)
The natural position of my arm which I assume to be about neutral elevator, is quickly corrected by Fred pushing the stick almost with outstretched arm. I will have to hold it there for the whole flight, which is a bizarre and tiring position.
I try to remember my briefing. Up to 40 kt you use differential braking, after this the ruddervators become effective (but that cross-wind is still pulling us left). At 70 knots you lift the nose wheel, rotate at 90 and lift off at 100. We aim for 120 Kts in the climb.
It responds poorly in pitch, it does not really seem to want to take off so I don’t pull too hard, I let it rotate slowly, much like in piston twin with an engine failure after the decision speed. I have the uncomfortable feeling that this picture does not really fit with what I heard during the briefing.
Fred ends up helping me and now it flies well. A tap on the brakes, retract the gear and it gently accelerates.
“Raise the flaps at 130 Kts.” I locate the flap control indicator on the left console. Oops! looks like we took off without the flaps" - An embarrassed silence, but some relief on my part. Now I understand why the takeoff was the way it was.
At 600 ft everything is stabilized and we turn sharply left to follow the road: it's going better right away, this aircraft now seems to fly very well and responds with gentleness and liveliness to the ailerons, despite a relative firmness. The ranches quickly scroll under the wings and we climb gently along the low foothills. As Fred negotiates with Joshua Approach (who control Edwards AFB) I experience a oscillation in roll as light turbulence from the desert begins makes itself felt. It’s maybe 1 or 2 degrees either side of neutral and I have trouble controlling it. I put my left hand on the stick to make sure it is not me who is causing this oscillation, but no, it persists no matter how much I try to block it. I attribute it to the inertia of tip tanks. Besides it will disappear once they emptied into the central tank.
The electric trim switch is very soft and very accurate.
We continue to climb along the arid and dusty terrain where the bushes are scarce, hoping for radar contact with Joshua, but no luck. Fred begins to show some exasperation, and decides to drop down into the valley. No more than 250 Kts downhill in turbulence.
The airspeed builds quickly and Fred suggests pressing the airbrake button. We are pushed forward in the straps as they spring open from the upper and lower wing surfaces to slow us suddenly, but without any pitch change. I push the nose towards the ground to maintain 250 kt. Down we go pointing to the lake in the valley.
"We will follow the lake to the left." Yes boss, we retract the airbrakes and stabilize the height a little above the water pulling 2-3g. Not too low because at this speed it is not possible to follow the tight bends in the lake so we cut the turns a little playing leapfrog with the small hills that surround it.
"Thou shall pay attention in this valley, it is sometimes traversed by F15s and F16s." It's true that we are operating in full MOA, military operation area!
I start to relax as we hop from peak to peak at 250 kt passing small dry trees or rock bars near which we see out of the corner of our eyes some raptors, swinging smoothly on each other’s wing to follow the contours of the valley. It felt like the exhilaration of glider slope-soaring, but compounded with the incomparable speed. Below it is deserted ... I think for a moment that I see two figures but they prove to be only dead tree trunks that pass in a flash before our silver wings.
The valley leads to a kind of stony plain, arid valleys studded with dried bushes. "You see the power line? We pass it then descend to the ground, and turn left … then you follow the tracks"
I am now beginning to feel very comfortable in this exciting airplane! Without the use of the rudder controls, tight turns happen with a quarter to half diameter deflection of the slip ball. It’s not much and as the rudder pedals are very heavy I give up quickly and live with it.
Fred also begins to feel confident and he suddenly begins to play some furious hard rock music through the headphones, which will make the end of the flight even hotter.
The valley through which we follow the railway widens and we fly over a few scattered ranches. Here, the road ends in a large loop and a freight train is turned around before heading back the other way.
"There's no more railroad, what do we do?”. "Well, we attack the train!" Of course! I descend right away banking back towards the loop in the track. I rejoice inwardly!
Fortunately, Fred manages the navigation and guides me from time to time: I do not have any idea of our position.
Going up the pass that terminates the valley, I take the time to enjoy the excellent view to the outside from this “balcony overlooking the square”. I turn to see the wings and am surprised at having to search so far behind. It is a true jubilation to see this unusual aspect of wings and tip-tanks so beautifully streamlined, at the end of the swept-back leading edge.
Descending at the foothills behind the pass, we end up at the road we are to follow on the right, avoiding some windmills in front of us.
Knowing that Fred would usually be urging: "go, go, go down, go down again ..." I do not give him the opportunity. I forget my European regulations and hug the floor so that it seems entirely reasonable that the windshield is embossed with a vision of Joshua trees emerging from the low bushes. The sweet and precise trim allows the Fouga to be controlled with no effort, guiding the plane a few meters above the desert flora, espousing by tiny stick pressure the gradients at the bottom. I have never understood those who fly out of trim with a permanent stick pressure.
The road turns right and climbs gently to a small hill, I quietly bank with a slight back pressure to cut the corner, too tight to be followed at that speed.
“Don’t bank too much, it will dent the tanks ..." We're on the same wavelength! Behind the pass a power pylon causes me to chicken out and to give it a wide berth. After that: "This is good, there are no obstacles now, you can go back down." He doesn’t need to tell me twice!
A final peak passes below as we bank around it almost vertically, and we are on the face of the flat Mojave desert.
We turn to the aerobatic sequence, which I like a lot. When I was a kid it was the was the distant sound of Marlborés that took me out into the meadow with my grandparents, and I dreamed of these little dots with their metallic reflections high in the bright blue sky of Puy Dome - to the chagrin of my grandmother, to whom this budding vocation suggested the worst of fears.
Fred pulls me from my reveries, pointing to Edwards AFB nearby, beside its huge salt lake, and I ascend to 10000 ft above California City airport as he negotiates, this time successfully, with Joshua Approach.
Aligned above the bridge its asphalt visible in the middle of the uniform floor I try an aileron roll. No need to for any rudder input, it rotates very easily: the ailerons are very firm but effective. The nose tends to go down a bit on the back, I need to round it out with a bit of forward pressure.
Turn left back towards the runway and attack a loop: "You need 280 kt, and then you pull to 3.5 / 4g." Luckily, my buttocks are calibrated to 4g and that's what I automatically pull be it the light Salto or the heavier Zlin 526.
So I pick up some speed and pull straight, gently but firmly. A glance at the accelerometer, 4g on the nose and we curve slowly toward the sky. The pull is very long, it lasts, it lasts, it's endless, I see only blue and the dancing reflection of the sun on the metal frame, and do not know where I am. I turn my head to the wings but the weight of the helmet under 4g bothers me, the wings are too far behind and I can not see the angle on the horizon.
Meanwhile speed, and thus the load factor decrease: the thrust of Marboré (and again, a VI, yes, I know ...) is far from compensating the weight and drag. Maintaining 4g therefore requires a steady increase in the rear stick action with an aerodynamic force that decreases quite dramatically with speed. I just control the pitch by holding the buttocks at 4g, pulling straight into the blue and seeking, head thrown back, the return of the inverted horizon.
It’s, horizontal well above the windshield, so the climb was symmetrical ... it's time to release the pressure on the stick for that delicious moment when one contemplates the inverted landscape in a feeling of quasi-weightlessness, allowing the nose to fall gently through. We are now in a free descent on the back, and it is time to re-accelerate the pitch rate and increase the load factor, to find our 4g. The duration of the descent is like that of the climb, and this long plunge towards the sand, with the rate increasing rapidly, impresses me a little. So I draw a little more by reflex, up to 5g and i being to gently grey-out ... I bring the nose just under the overexposed horizon, black and white, accented with stars. I am obviously paying for the 9 hours time difference and insufficient sleep last night, after an 11 hours flight from Paris to Los Angeles!
It is certainly not the figure Aresti intended, but it meets the requirements of the aircraft and its engine. No thanks to present day competitors and their machines for the brutality of modern aerobatics.
"You okay? Do it again?" ... "And how!" I go back for more, being careful this time not to over-tighten the end of the loop. What a delight, the vertical amplitude and the speed are absolutely exhilarating.
We hit 300 Kts for a half-Cuban eight. Again unlike modern aerobatics it is very smooth and the half roll on the way down, with some coordination of the rudder this time, it is a real treat. The pivoting of the Mojave and California City airport runway in the windshield are completely exhilarating.
But even the best moments must come to an end and we have to think about joining the rattle snakes on the ground.
Fred offered me a low pass over the runway, followed by the pattern. Perfect! I lose 5 or 6,000 ft in a half-turn nose pointing at the runway, with a few seconds of air brakes out of the turn and lined up at a reasonable height ( "Not too low, though, there are people below! “)
300 Kts and just above the hangars we have ample energy to pull up to 140 its as the music subsides so we can focus quietly on the landing. Gear down, 15 ° of flaps and we stabilize at 130 kts. Then 40 ° of flap and back to 120 Kts as we turn down wind. It's all very easy and the speed is absolutely constant. At Fred’s suggestion the aiming point is the physical threshold of runway and not the displaced threshold. The Fouga rounds out very low to the ground due to the low wing and short landing gear.
While on short final and stabilized at 120 Kts, Fred tells me "Do not worry, it flies very well" and at 50-100 ft pulls the throttles to the idle stop. I finished on the residual thrust smoothly until the flare: a slight pitch attitude and I am quietly waiting for it to touch with the nose just above the horizon. Then pitch down, gently placing the nose wheel on the ground and braking gently to taxi speed to the ramp.
After this absolutely ecstatic flight I found it hard to come back to the reality of those brakes, which definitely require a little more practice.
We stop in front of the pumps - we consumed 700L of fuel.
We encounter the hot desert wind on the opening the canopy, and removing my helmet I feel a paradoxically cold sensation in my hair. I realize that despite the air conditioning being on full cold, I was still sweating!
The Fouga Magister left an excellent impression. Built at a time when people took pride in their work and had a love of beautiful work, it is maneuverable, but gentle. Easy to fly but unpleasant to taxi. However it is a heavy airplane, loaded, but with feeble motors (yes, I know: and yet they were Marboré VI!). A true witness to a blessed time when French aviation could build excellent and original machines. Not really club air speeds, but not of airliner speeds either.
A visit to California City Municipal Airport is really a fantastic opportunity to fly on a small fighter plane, in absolutely exceptional conditions of freedom allowed by the desert environment of the Mojave and the California mountains, as well as by Fred’s especially cool attitude. I was able to do exactly what I wanted without any restrictions!
It was my birthday and it was my 100th type flown: enough to leave a great memory ...
We leave the Fouga canopy open, helmets, parachutes and survival equipment on the wings for a bite to eat. I worry about living this stuff where anyone can get at it. Fred says: "Do not worry, we are not in France!”
You don’t say! In Fred’s hangar there is a display of the rates charged in France for the same type of ride, but obviously subjected to the shackles of our regulatory environment: it is four times more expensive!
In front of a terrible American sandwich with Cajun Fries and relish, close to two fat men scarfing it down with delectation, Fred tells they plan to acquire a tandem Mig15, so they can offer the same thing, but at 400 Kts I will definitely have to come back!
Cactus Busters, ou sa majesté Fouga Magister from Gilles Tatry on Vimeo.