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had quickly handed the controls over to Cabianca and a trial
run at flight became what he remembers as “something that
felt very natural, not difficult or complicated.”
The glider caught a draft of vertical hot air and began to
climb on an air mass that was ascending faster than the glider
was descending. Cabianca piloted the craft in slow, tight
circles.
As he maneuvered the soaring glider, he looked out over
mountainous Italian terrain. Just opposite them, off their
wing, was a hawk, making identical circles. “We were duplicating
100
what birds can do but in a completely different way,”
says Cabianca. “Without using any energy, the bird was
managing his descent and that allowed him to stay afloat.
I thought it was fascinating.” It was another touchstone for
Cabianca’s journey to become a professional aviator.
But he learned that flight training in Europe would be an
expensive venture.
After extensive research he identified Long Beach, California,
as his best flight school option. Training through the U.S.
Federal Aviation Administration system would be recognized
in Europe, and fuel prices in America were much less expensive,
which brought the training costs down. There was also
a good-sized fleet, and Southern California offered a busy air
traffic corridor. He wanted to be good enough to accomplish
his training in one of the busiest flight areas in the world,
Long Beach being just 20 minutes south of the Los Angeles
airport (LAX).
He would return to Long Beach for his instrument rating
qualifications, and upon graduation, he and two friends
rented a plane and flew themselves from Long Beach to LAX
so that Cabianca could catch a flight back to London.
After six months back in the U.K., he quit his job and
moved to Florida, taking a position as a flight instructor in
Fort Pierce. He then flew a Cessna C-208 Grand Caravan,
a turbine-powered plane for a sky-diving company based
in Opa-locka, where he shuttled divers over the drop-zone.
Throughout this time Cabianca took the route of many aspiring
commercial pilots. He would acquire flight time and
update his resume and hand-carry it around to the big corporate
airports — Fort Lauderdale Executive, West Palm Beach,
Lantana — looking for work.
And it was flying that brought him and his wife, Susan,
together. They met while she was taking her flight training at
Paris Air in Vero.
His next job was piloting a Learjet for a medical evacuation
service for four years before signing on with Atlas. And he
and Susan decided to stay in Vero. “It’s not far from major
airports,” he says. “It’s safe and also close to the ocean.”
As an Atlas pilot, Cabianca has had the opportunity to fly
what he calls “an iconic aircraft.” Nicknamed “The Whale”
or “Queen of the Skies,” the Boeing 747 jumbo jet’s size and
presence captivated him. “The very fact that it could carry
450 people for a 12-hour flight just amazed me,” he says.
“That plane was designed in the late ’60s back in the days
when aircraft designs were created on the backs of cocktail
napkins. It doesn’t get much better than that.”
As Cabianca knows well, the jet is capable of transporting
immense amounts of cargo. This past spring, the belly of his
plane was filled with 98,000 kilos of flowers — more than
200,000 pounds. That route was Bogota to Miami. Mother’s
Day was approaching and the U.S. market was awaiting its
bouquets.
Then, in October, there was the midnight rendezvous. Like
star-crossed lovers they were brought together on a dark
tarmac in Santiago de Chile. The jumbo jet and the pilot who
loved to fly her came to the rescue of a 7,000-pound damsel >>
The Boeing 747-400 is an
all-freight version of the
passenger jet. It has a nose
door which opens upwards to
facilitate loading pallets for a
variety of cargo, including the
occasional elephant.