Coming off the 'maiden aunt'-like F27, for a new trainee FO, those first few line flights on the -9 were a bit like a callow youth meeting a fast and loose, very rakish woman of decidely loose morals for the very first time. It was said they reserved a seat for the trainee FO in row 20 (last row in Economy) for the first few sectors - for that was about how far behind the aircraft most of us were.
However, when you managed to keep up with her, the -9 became a real joy. Five sectors SY-CB-SY-CB-SY, resulting, often as not, in not much more than two hours to add to the log book, could be quite a workout. You knew you'd mastered the beast when both pilots managed to eat their breakfast -
separately - on the same sector, with a 35 departure from CB and a straight in aproach (R/W 07) in to SY.
(I only ever managed this once, and remember the captain's name to this day, and I have to admit, it involved scoffing my meal down at a very ungentlemanly rate! The captain handed the hostie his tray at about 5,000' on finals for 07 at Sydney.)
Someone's already mentioned the 'duopoly race' that went on daily between the AN and TN -9's virtually all over Australia, for the schedules were exactly the same almost everywhere. On more than one occasion, I recall sweating on getting that last door closed so we could start the second engine and so beat the opposition with the vital taxi call
(first to make the call got to be first to the holding point) - only to hear the TN -9, with his front integral stairs still down, call for taxi clearance, be given it, and watch him move off the blocks with his stairs still at full stretch retracting, looking, for all the world like the stairs were a long arm out a window signalling the turn.
A bit of bragging now. Anyone else remember the speedbrake 'chatter' when you'd pulled off a
really good landing?
(For the uninitiated, the autospeedbrake handle would 'chatter', not quite deploying, as it was unable to decide whether you were on the ground or not, if you managed to really grease it on.) [A bit like the two breakfasts on one CB-SY sector, I may only have done that once too!!!
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