Yann Lehe

Ace naval fighter pilot lands in paradise after lifetime flying unfriendly skies

Words Jill Nicholas

Pictures/video Stephen Parker

Force maritime de l'aéronautique navale.

Crikey, that’s a bit of a mouthful in any language France, it’s land of origin, included.

Thankfully there’s a shortened version. It’s Aeronavale and to demystify it further it’s the French Fleet Air Arm. 

Yann Lehe spent 29 years as one of its ace fighter pilots, flying on and off aircraft carriers and patrolling some of the world’s major hot spots, Israel and Libya included. He was in the thick of things during the 1990s Balkan war. 

Following his compulsory retirement at 49 and with the rank of Capitaine de Fregate (commander in Kiwi speak) he flew for civilian-owned companies specialising in international surveillance and paramilitary work.

 “We were the policemen of the skies looking for suspicious activity but without weapons.”

In complete contrast to flying into war zones he’s had a decade as an emergency medical evacuation pilot ferrying the sick and injured to and from hospitals throughout Europe and North Africa. 

He’s flown in aerobatic displays throughout Europe and run marathons and triathlons “for fun and fitness.”

Today Rotorua is his home and he flies friendly Kiwi skies giving family and friends scenic tours in a former RNZAF Airtrainer in which he has shares.

His happy place is the Classic Flyer Museum in Tauranga. He’s been a volunteer there since discovering it six months after his New Zealand arrival in 2020.

“I’m very involved in school visits. It’s so fun. I am sowing seeds that aviation as a career is not just about airline pilots who are mostly pushing buttons. There are so many other possibilities and opportunities.”
Through Yann’s eyes living in Rotorua is living in paradise. He scoffs when locals whinge about a four car queue at traffic lights.   

A Parisian by birth, he came here so his Rotorua-born wife Jocelyn (nee Rofe) could be close to her father. She couldn’t be closer. They’re immediate neighbours.

“I lost my father in 2019. He was 98 years of age. I said to my wife we must shift and look after your father now. A year later we were here.”

Kiwi wife French national

Jocelyn Lehe has a rare claim of her own. She’s lived in France longer than New Zealand and is legally recognised as a French national. Her daughter the product of an earlier marriage, was born in France.

Jocelyn is Yann’s third wife. They met on line. “I was chasing women at the time.” They married in 2014.  

Being the charming, archetypical Frenchman that he is Yann unashamedly confesses to periods of his life in which he’s “chased women”. Yes, they’re his words. He’s unequivocal about Jocelyn being his ultimate find. 

They arrived here when the global pandemic was at its zenith.

 “We got lucky with MIQ.”

For those who’ve already forgotten that’s Managed Isolated Quarantine.

During their fortnight in isolation Yann discovered Trade Me and bought himself a Suzuki 250, riding it into town, the day he left MIQ.

“I’ve been a biker all my life and have always had a bike in the garage. I’ve now got a Suzuki Bandit 600.” 

With that brief summary of his life in the here and now we turn to the 70 years that went before.

Parisian city boy 

The first 14 of them were spent in Paris.

“I was a city boy. I didn’t see a cow until I was around eight. I took the Metro to school. I wouldn’t live in Paris now. It’s too busy, too crowded. That’s why I like New Zealand with the population so low.”  

When he was 14 his computer engineer father moved to a job at Belfort, close to the Swiss border.

“It was about the size of Rotorua.”

Yann thrived there, that’s until at his mother’s insistence he went to medical school. 
“I was not serious about medicine at all. I was totally immature, chasing women, watching rugby every day so it didn’t work out.”

He became a rugby fanatic after starting to play in his teens.

“I had long hair. According to my father I looked like a girl. I was told to play rugby and look like a man.”

After two years he quit med school, trading it to study geology.

“Why not? I had it in my head it would take me to the Amazon Forest but it was only about searching for oil in desert countries. I discovered it wasn’t to my liking. 

“After three months I walked away. At this stage my parents stopped all financial support. I became a house painter.”

That too was short lived.

Yann was called up for France’s compulsory military service. It was to be his entry to becoming a naval pilot – but not at once.

Seaside holidays lead to naval career

“I chose to join the navy because our family summer vacations  were spent on the beach at Brittany, and I had an uncle who was a sailor in the war.

“They asked me what I wanted to do. Pilot was at the top of the list. I was told ‘you are not qualified enough, try again’. Navigator was next on the list. He shook his head again.

“I was eventually sent to be a marine rifleman, part of the first level workforce.” 

After two months Yann’s future took a skyward swing when it was decided he was sufficiently qualified to train as an air traffic controller.

“I had no idea what that was.”

He was sent to a base in Nimes.

“Nimes isn’t on the sea. There was no harbour, no war ships, just a runway and hangar. I was wondering what I was doing there.”

During his three years training he met his first wife “the mother of my children.”  He has a son and daughter.

On qualifying he became an instructor but his ambition to become a pilot wasn’t quenched.

Pilot dream realised 

“My mother taught me pilots were gods. Pilots were coming into my office all day filing flight plans. Two guys in particular weren’t polite at all. They would never say ‘please’ or ‘thanks’ and were often vulgar and insensitive.  

“I thought if these dumb arses can be pilots why can’t I? I applied and it worked.”

Yann received his wings in 1981 and given three choices: fighter, maritime or helicopter pilot.

“I wasn’t bad at flying in formation so I chose fighter.”

 That took another year’s training before he was posted to a combat squadron and sent to sea. 

“I was a junior pilot, only landing in the day time then I became an ‘owl’. That’s when you are doing night time landings.”

By1985 he joined the ranks of commissioned officers. 

He was one of only five nuclear qualified pilots in a squadron of 20.

This raises the obvious question what’s his stance on living in a nuclear free country?

 “It is New Zealand’s choice. Nuclear power plants are much better than coal. That is what I think, but I am a pilot not a politician. I am often confronted with nuclear testing in the Pacific 50 years ago. Maybe now is a good time to look beyond the Rainbow Warrior.”

Hot spots, unrest, crises 

Being a fleet air arm pilot has taken Yann across the world and back again.

“France is on the Mediterranean Sea where there were a lot of political hot spots. We were taught to call an area of unrest a crisis not a war. 

“In 1983 we were cruising off Israel. The conflict then is no different from today’s.

“We were often around Libya when Gaddafi was in power. We were based in the Adriatic during the Balkan crisis in the ‘90s. 

“I’ve spent a lot of time in Cyprus.”

Push him and he acknowledges he has “a number” of medals, awarded for his active service to France.

His service includes two years in the US on an exchange programme as a Skyhawk jet instructor. 

“That was the aircraft New Zealand previously used.”

Yann prepared for America by learning to speak “reasonable” English but found himself in Texas and the southern states with their unique drawl.

“There I learned how to speak English like a down south, red neck Mississippi person. But it was a very good time, a lot of flying, travel with my kids.”

His students were predominately from Europe and Asia.

“It’s funny, American instructors don’t like to fly non-Americans so I became a specialist in foreign students. The French students were like my kids.”

Returning to France he was back on aircraft carriers, employed as a landing signals officer (LSO) guiding pilots if needed when landing, especially at night and in marginal conditions

LSOs, he says, have saved lives and aircraft.

He retired to the home he’d bought at Scalon de Provence, not far from Nimes. He’s retained it, returning frequently.

Para-military missions

If Yann thought his would be a pipe-and-slippers retirement he was kidding himself.

Within days of farewelling the navy a friend told him his boss ran a paramilitary company and was looking for a Skyhawk pilot.

I said ‘okay’. He hired me with one phone call. 

“I was back at the base at Nimes but on the civilian side of the runway. I was flying aggressor-type missions, being a ‘bad guy’ pretending to attack French warships at sea. The French government pays a civilian company to do that.”

When the company lost the contract the boss called him and said “No Skyhawks, no Yann.”

“He said I could be recycled as a MedEvac pilot.

It took me one year to become a captain. I didn’t know anything about civilian aviation. It’s a very different world to being a fighter pilot. I had to adapt. My karma improved. It was negative after working with weapons.”

When not medivacing he was flying for the same company, captaining a Dassault Falcon 20. These were paramilitary flights engaged in electronic warfare.

In 2017 Yann switched to a Luxemburg-based company, working in Africa, one month on, one off, piloting a Cessna 208 Beechcraft.

“It’s a workhorse. We were a crew of five, two pilots, and three technicians looking for suspicious activities in the desert.

There are plenty of these in Africa. It’s very difficult to spot baddies. During daytime they can be shepherds with flocks but at night they become terrorists with bombs.”

Violence, weapons, gunfire

“I’ve been based in Mali, Libya, Niger, Tunisia, Egypt. I have seen violence, used weapons and been shot at. That’s why I say it’s paradise here in New Zealand.”

With so many missions, military and civilian, accomplished, surely Yann’s experienced scary moments?”

Non,” he says. “When it gets scary you quit. I respect that. What scares me is having a mission fail.” 

He admits there has been one time when his hand’s been on the ejector seat release. He refers to the seat as a pilot’s life insurance.

He almost used it when he experienced a full scale  electrical failure while preparing to land on a naval air station, equipped with arresting gear.

“I climbed back up, got the power back. I landed in pouring rain, started to brake, nothing happened. I was doing 200 km/h. I put the hook down with one hand and grabbed the ejector handle with the other.

The hook caught. I wasn’t scared but my heart was thumping at 200 beats a minute. I drank a lot of beer that night.”  

 He lost his best friend in a crash.

“Being dressed in full military uniform with a sabre at your side as you stand by the coffin of a brother-in-arms is a difficult souvenir.

“When I look back on my military career it’s not the speed, the weapons or the aircraft carriers I miss. It’s the camaraderie, the esprit de corps, being able to rely on these friends.

I was so lucky.”