This article was previously published in The Anguillian on the 25th May, 2018. It is reprinted in honour of Captain Maurice Connor’s birthday.
Flying into Anguilla out of St. Croix on the morning of May 23rd was Captain William Bohlke, Jr. He had transported our Former Chief Minister, Hon. Osbourne Fleming and Mrs. Fleming for the funeral service of the late Former Chief Minister, Sir Emile Gumbs.
Mr. Maurice Connor is a great acquaintance with Capt. Bohlke, having known him for the past fifty-three years, since 1965, when back then the Mr. Bohlke was his flight instructor for his private pilot license course.
In its April 13th edition, The Anguillian carried a feature to commemorate the birthday of Mr. Connor in which certain aspects of his flying career were highlighted. For today’s issue, however, The Anguillian has had the opportunity to make a brief interview with Capt. Bohlke, the man who stood behind Capt. Connor in training him for his noble career.
Capt Bohlke said: “Maurice was working in St. Croix and he approached us at Bohlke Aviation with the desire to fly. I had been in St. Croix since 1961, having come there with my dad to reside from the States. I had been in the aviation business with my dad, Captain William Bohlke, Sr., and I was the one who took Maurice up into the air for his first training lesson in the art of flying.
“Maurice got his private pilot license within three months, with 45 hours of training under his belt. The machine we used was a two-seater Air Coupe, and I still remember the identification number as N6150Q.”
“When Maurice approached me about flying, there were certain regulations prescribed by the FAA to comply with. He easily fit them. However, today it is much more stringent. There is a whole host of checks and balances that must be adhered to. Even airports themselves have obviously changed due to specific regulations and rating standards.
“When I first flew into Anguilla back in 1963, for instance, this runway was just dirt; there was no fuel; there were no lights. Today, however, for a commercial airport, those conditions cannot exist in terms of regulations and ratings.
“In those days, back in the early 60’s, my dad had the Herons around here first. We used to fly into Anguilla on the De Havilland Heron. We used to fly Virgin Island Airways between San Jaun, St. Thomas and St. Croix and occasionally into Anguilla.”
After acquiring his private license with Bohlke Aviation, Mr. Connor went on to Florida to train to be a commercial pilot with multi-engine ratings at Opa Locka Flight School, in Miami. Upon completing his course there, he returned to Anguilla to take up flying service with Valley Air Service in 1967, with Capt. Clayton Lloyd, the proprietor. He noted: “One of my first fond memories was transporting the journalist Eddy Ottley of WSTA, who had come in to cover details of the Anguilla invasion by British paratroopers.”
Mr. Connor has always had a high degree of praise and admiration for his teacher, Captain Bohlke. He said that they had become inseparable friends ever since his training, and they are still good buddies up to today.
Concerning his training, he had these complimentary comments to make of Bohlke Aviation and his instructor: “At Bohlke Aviation in St. Croix, Billy has made me tough. He is one of the roughest instructors you would ever find in a flying school. But when he finishes with you, you are good — good to go.”
Captain Bohlke is a retired airline pilot, having flown for American Airlines for 38 years. His stint of service there covered the years 1968 to 2006. The craft which he flew to Anguilla this time is a twin engine turbo prop Mitsubishi Solitaire with a cruise speed of 350 mph and has a range of 1500 statute miles, and he says it climbs up to 28,000 ft. He claims the trip from St. Croix to Anguilla took only 26 minutes. He calls Maurice, “Mr: Aviation.”
