Overstress- we used to love the voice-activated autothrust. Impressed so many people. We used to have visitors say 'No.4- reduce power!', and it so amazed them when No.4 started moving backwards. Nobody ever noticed the Flight Engineer had his own thrust levers!
Because the close engines would throb like a piston twin if slightly out of phase, there was a gauge on the F/Es panel with three little needles going around to show engine speed on 1, 2 & 3 compared to No.4, the baseline engine. They were each labelled FAST and SLOW. This helped the F/E get the engines operating at exactly the same speed. We had a tubby kid on the flight deck once, and when we got fed up with them we'd stuff a headset on them and leave them to listen and watch. Eventually this kid tapped the F/E on the shoulder and said imperiously 'No.2's a bit slow'- without having any idea what it meant. It affronted the F/Es professional pride pride, they used to get very protective of 'their' engineering department- he was seething. If he could have opened a window, he'd have slung the kid out. For the rest of the trip, we could spoil his day be repeating 'No.2's a bit slow' to him!
Hated F/Es. It was always their job to conduct the new pretty and innocent young stewardesses into the Electronics bay to show them the fabled 'Golden Rivet' when the rest of the crew put them up to it. Always involved bending right over in a cramped compartment looking through the periscope (used for undercarriage inspection) blackened with shoe polish so they had a nice blackeye when they walked through the cabin. Ah nostalgia!
Rather unbelievably, in those pre-INS days, we used to navigate with a pilot taking sextant readings, with his eye stuck to the sextant and unable to move a muscle. That was usually a cue for the most attractive stewardess on the crew to come up to the FD and grab him by the meat and 2 veg and shake him about screeching.
It was pathetic what used to make us laugh. You have to do something to relieve the boredom while you wonder how you will ever find Bermuda using sextant navigation and Loran fixes. We didn't lose any (well not many).
(Having just been banned for a week 'for making a public pronouncement', this may be my last post for a while)
Last edited by Rainboe; 22nd Jul 2006 at 18:43.