Instructors from Cognac

Cartouche Doré was formed in April 1989 at Cognac-Châteaubernard, the French Air Force’s basic flying school, and first flew for the base’s celebration of 100,000 flying hours on the Socata TB 30 Epsilon. Its pilots were instructors from the school’s instructor-training squadron; the first three were Lieutenants Paul-Guy Maneval, Dominique Crochard and Albert Pouzoulet. The name joined the squadron’s radio call sign, Cartouche, to Doré, the patrol’s identifier. It became an official Air Force team in 1995.

Epsilons without smoke

The team always flew three Epsilons, with a pool of five instructors. Because the Epsilon had no smoke system, separations and rejoins were harder to make readable from the ground. Piston engines let it use grass airfields beyond the reach of the Patrouille de France, and it grew from about a dozen shows a year to about thirty, with a 17-minute display. The livery changed from black and gold (1989–1994) to white and blue with yellow (1994–2011) and blue, silver and gold from 2011. It flew its 100th display at Ancenis in 1997 and passed 450 by June 2009.

Losses and the end

Two team pilots died: Lieutenant Christophe Farnier, newly qualified as a wingman, in a training-mission accident in 2004, and Lieutenant Xavier Chavarot, whose Epsilon crashed near Cognac on 14 March 2007. The patrol was stood down permanently at a ceremony at Cognac on 27 October 2016.