Miloš Kvapil

* 1937

  • "I switched to a sixty-two and flew it all over the world for 13 years. First we flew via Bombay to Singapore and Jakarta. Then Africa, Cairo, Casablanca, Abu Dhabi, I was in Ethiopia, then we flew - it was like first you fly east and then you fly west. If one was an instructor, one flew east and west. I wasn't an instructor for a long time, so I flew east for a long time. Then I was reassigned and I flew Montreal, Havana, New York. That was wonderful, too. I always had a lot of fun. When I flew somewhere, like when we were in Jakarta, we even climbed Krakatau, that was an incredible experience. We've been to Bali with a bunch of people, to Borobudur... We were in those places for maybe a week, so we took advantage of that. We weren't allowed to travel out of Jakarta, but they didn't give a damn, and if we had a good group, we took advantage of it, so the experience was incredible. And when I flew to America, of course we weren't allowed to go anywhere from New York, but nobody could forbid me to go to Washington, so we did those things on a regular basis. That was nice, too. You got to go to all the museums, and because I like opera, when I was in New York I got to go to the Metropolitan Opera, and when I saw Aida or something like that, those are experiences you never forget."

  • "It was very much used by the democratic force that still existed in Bohemia at that time, although it was suppressed by the communists. But the atmosphere at the rally was fantastic, an incredibly pro-Benes atmosphere. It's interesting that President Benes was dying sometime around that time, around that summer of 1948. That exercise was with great vigor and we came home and we were thrilled with what a wonderful atmosphere it was in that Prague. Unfortunately, then it all ended quickly. I would even say that up until that summer the Communists were still, perhaps, treating the nation somewhat decently. But after the rally, it got pretty cruel."

  • "Besides that, we cycled, skied, swam, climbed rocks, went to the Krkonoše Mountains, hiked all the hills here, there is still a scout hut in Babí, there is one when you go to Babí, so you go down to the Jizera, and the Jizera makes a kind of shoulder there, and then it flows down to the raft. Under the Mosnovsky, actually, the Benesovsky. So the hut is still there now, we used to go there on holidays, but also on weekends, because we used to spend there really... Scouting was fantastic, because it brought us closer to nature, and built friendships that are unforgettable."

  • "Do you know what a battledress is? Have you heard it anywhere? It was an English uniform, a very smart one. Tight trousers, and here it was like a button-down jacket, and it was very tight and it was very nice. So I know I got one of those jackets from him and then I walked around in it for an awful long time. So it was nice."

  • "But the funny or amusing thing about it was that this one girl, the stewardess who flew there with us, she knew a parish priest, and the parish priest said, yeah, John Paul, I know him, he's really into scrambled eggs! And so, of course these people always have the catering terribly judged and checked, however, she took scrambled eggs from home and the Pope ate scrambled eggs on the way."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Semily, 24.01.2018

    (audio)
    délka: 01:23:41
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
  • 2

    Praha, 25.05.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 01:36:30
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

We flew all over the world. Then they interrogated us and checked what we brought back

Miloš Kvapil
Miloš Kvapil
zdroj: witness archive

Miloš Kvapil was born on 22 June 1937 in Semily. In his childhood he attended the Sokol and later the Scouts, in 1948 he participated in the XI All-Sokol Flight in Prague. His parents owned the hotel Municipal (later District) House, which was confiscated by the communists after the February coup. After elementary school he apprenticed as a toolmaker at the apprenticeship in Lučany nad Nisou and then graduated from the industrial school in Mladá Boleslav. From his youth he was very fond of flying, and during the military (1958 to 1960) he flew MiG-15 fighters. He became a pilot by profession in 1972, until then (1961 to 1972) he worked in the investment department of the Velveta velvet fabric manufacturing plant in Varnsdorf. He served for CSA on long-haul flights and travelled all over the world. In the 1990s, he served as CSA‘s Vice President for Flight Operations and as Director of the CSA Training Centre. After the revolution, he participated in the selection of new flight equipment and one of his passengers was Pope John Paul II. He published a book on the history of long-haul flights at CSA. At the time of the interview (2021) he was living in Prague.