Coal mines instead of the sky
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Jan Jurkas was born on 18 January 1938 in Jihlava, and he has been interested in flying since his childhood. He attended a model making and he went to help at a nearby Henčov Airport. His parents resigned their memberships of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia after 1948 and after finishing elementary school, Jan Jurkas applied for the Aviation Vocational School in Košice, Slovakia which was denied during the summer holidays of 1952. He later left to study at the Mining Vocational School in Karviná where his until that time hidden athletic talent showed, and he soon joined the Baník Karviná unit. After some time, he sent an appeal and a request for transfer to the Aviation Vocational School, however, it was rejected. He worked in the ČSA mine where he kept working until 1961, he later returned to Vysočina Region and started to work for Motorpal in Jihlava where he was offered to join the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. He accepted the offer, but he was expelled from the ranks of the Communist Party for his opposition to the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops. He became a secretary at the Local National Committee in Měšín in 1971 and he retired shortly after 1989. In 2008, when he was sixty years old, he tried his first flight in an Airbus transport aircraft simulator. At the time of recording, Jan Jurkas and his wife lived in their family house in Měšín.
