IN MEMORY
cargo Vince (right) with Thrust SSC driver, Andy Green.
A CAREER PLANNED TO PERFECTION
A tribute to our friend and former colleague Vince Jones who sadly passed away in August
Customers all over the world share fond memories of Vince and his passion for aviation. For many years he travelled the globe assessing and planning loads and advising customers on the movement of their outsize and super-heavy pieces of cargo by air.
In his early career, Vince worked for Lloyd International Airways and Transmeridian Air Cargo. For a time he ran his own cargo business at London Stansted Airport before becoming one of the fi rst employees of HeavyLift Cargo Airlines, and connecting with Volga-Dnepr through the joint venture established between the two airlines. When this ended in 2001, Vince joined Volga- Dnepr UK.
During his time at HeavyLift, Vince was involved in many high profi le projects, organising the transportation of satellites, trucks, machinery, helicopters, boats and even other aircraft in the cargo holds of Belfast, Hercules, Guppy, A300, An- 124, IL-76, An-12, B707, DC-8 and other freighter types. Vince worked closely with all the major satellite and spacecraft manufacturers, assisting with the design of
special containers to maximise the space available for satellites whilst ensuring they would be loadable into the transport aircraft.
Vince was involved in the very fi rst meeting between HeavyLift and Antonov at the Paris Air Show when the An-124 was being displayed by the Soviet government for the fi rst time, prior to it entering the commercial market. HeavyLift was displaying its Belfast aircraft in the static display and the aircraft was visited by representatives from Antonov. Language differences initially made it challenging to communicate until Vince discovered that one of the Antonov representatives, Mr Igor Babenko, spoke Spanish, as did Vince. Vince invited them to look around the Belfast and they exchanged business cards. He then went to see the An-124 with HeavyLift director Graham Pearce. This meeting could be regarded as the very start of the cooperation which led to the joint ventures between Volga-Dnepr and HeavyLift as well as Antonov and Air Foyle.
In 1994, Vince trained in the use of AutoCad, becoming the fi rst person in the company to have their own desktop PC! More importantly, he had acquired the knowledge and technology to begin ‘virtual’ planning of outsize and heavyweight cargo
Vince’s expertise and enthusiasm lives on to this day in the members of the Volga- Dnepr team that had the privilege to work with him and to learn from him. He will be sorely missed and our sincere thoughts are with his family and friends at this sad time.
super market
loads. As well as enabling customers to see the processes involved in the loading and unloading of their shipments, such detailed load planning ensured there were no delays on the day of the actual fl ight because everything had been studied and prepared to the fi nest detail.
In the early 1990s, the Operation Christmas Child charity initiative was started by Dave Cooke in Liverpool. The aim of the project was to send gift-fi lled shoeboxes to underprivileged children in Eastern Europe. It started with a van full of gifts but grew and grew until the size of the project demanded the use of the giant An- 124. Vince was proud to be on board that fi rst fl ight from Liverpool and each year the operation got bigger and bigger until 2000 when there were fi ve An-124 on the ground at Stansted, ready to be loaded with Christmas gifts for children in need around the world.
In the late 1990s, Vince was involved in setting up the contract with Lockheed Martin, which later became United Launch Alliance, and it continues to this day with the most recent fl ight being operated on 13 August 2014. Vince always enjoyed his visits to Denver to visit Lockheed Martin, and often returned with a new pair of his favourite cowboy boots.
He even helped to set a world record when the An-124 enabled Richard Noble and Andy Green to break the sound barrier in their supersonic car, Thrust SSC. Vince was on hand with advice on the preparation of the car, its transporter and other equipment for the land speed record attempt and was there to greet them at Stansted on their triumphant return after Thrust SSC clocked a world record 763mph in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. The An-124 had earlier transported the team to Jordan for training runs before taking off to the USA for the record-breaking run.
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