828a, They were indeed great days. Just found an old photo, taken in front of one of the aero club 172's, VR-SEC, no doubt this aircraft would appear in your logbook.
Last edited by prospector; 20th Jan 2007 at 07:46.
Reason: Addition
prospector; I's there all right, VR-SEC was a real workhorse used mainly for flying training and payroll drops. I wonder what happened to it ? Maybe it is still with the flying club and still doing sterling service. Regards, 828a.
I just join PPRuNe yesterday, years after this tread started. I am looking for photos of uniforms of MAL crew and came across your tread.
Very interesting indeed even for one who is behind the cockpit door, a steward, I was and with MAL till I retired with SIA.
In your list of s/c registrations I notice 'MSA'. Perhaps you meant MAL as by the time MSA was formed there were no more DC-3s. These were replaced by the Fokker Friendship F-27.
Of course he means Lettie (Letitia on Sundays) but who cares how you spell her name. That lovely smile was one of my enduring memories of Borneo and I only met her a couple of times.
I flew in and out of Kuching on the daily Malayan Airways DC-3 for many years and I don't recall any Lettie. Who was she ? Did she work for Malayan Airways ? It's just possible that some of you old guys are boosting nice memories. It does happen.
Lettie was a ground hostess at Kuching, an airport shared by civvy and RAF. She was tall, slim, attractive in every sense of the word and a charming lady as well. She is no figment of our imagination. I last saw her in March 1967 when I stopped en route to Singapore from Labuan - I think the whistling wheel barrow needed some more juice, having first called at Jesselton (now KK).
There were a number of other ladies with whom the guys were friends and these included a couple of air hostesses, a police inspector, a customs officer at Labuan and an English dentist working in the same place. One lady attracted the attention of the RAF P&SS but that's another story.
Old- Duffer, Antoine De-Saint Exupery the famous French pioneer aviator, philosopher and man of letters once said, quote " memories are hidden wealth " unquote. I think you would agree. Good to see Kota Kinabalu refered to as Jesselton. It will always be Jesselton to me, and Labuan, these days people can't even pronounce Labuan correctly.
Bill4a Looks as if I may have missed something rather special, one of those things that for some reason the mind sets in concrete. Regards,
Since we started it off there's a whole lot ol old timetable scans turned up on the web, including Malayan/Malaysian every few years from 1950 to 1970. They are every page of each timetable, not just the front cover.
Great stuff, thanks for putting that up. One of the Malayan Airways timetables mentions " Federation Air Services " known at the time as FAS. Very few people would know that they actually existed as they operated low key flying single engine DH Beavers over the jungles of Malaya during the height of the emergency. To my knowledge they never had a problem. I had three friends flying those Beavers and I would like to think they are still around. Nick Nicoles ( later to Malayan Airways ) M.L.Leung ( later to Malayan Airways ) and Norman Lather ( later to Gulf Aviation ). There are a lot of memories in those old timetables. Regards,
