Loading the camels was certainly no easy task.
One of the stories Jan used to tell: Once, he was flying a rather large amount of some small monkeys in cages, probably for one of the Czechoslovak zoos recovering from their war loses. One of the monkeys was probably quite bored during the flight because it played with the door latch until it opened the cage door. The monkey gladly ran out of the cage, enjoyed her newly discovered freedom and went on to liberate its simian buddies. The crew did not notice anything until they landed and opened the cargo space. Instead of their well-deserved rest, the airplane crew, along with the airport staff, spent several hours running around on the runway until they managed to catch all the monkeys.
On some other occasion, they flied a cargo of Olomouc cheese famous for its strong flavour, for the French connoisseurs to enjoy. It was in summer and after having landed in Paris, the staff opened the cargo space and the crew as well as the airport staff almost fainted, suffocated by the stench.
One could go on and on, Jan had a plenty of such stories. Some other stories of captain Irving and his colleagues were described in Josef Zacharda's wonderful book, Světla a stíny leteckého povolání [Highlights and shadows of the pilot's job], unfortunately long out of print.
