Please forgive me if some of these stories have already been told . . . many will remember Alan XXX, the ex AN DC-9 Captain who took up ground instructing for RMIT at Essendon (and later Point Cook I think). He was an ex maths/science teacher and I did my CPL, IREX and ATPL subjects with him – and he always had a great story to tell.
Like the DC-9 ‘in flight’ refuelling when they flew from Sydney to Perth – they would plan for Adelaide with correct reserves and immediately ‘divert’ to Perth once airborne.
He also told me about the night Tullamarine opened when he and a FO relocated all the AN DC-9’s from Essendon. The story went that they took off from Essendon on RW26 and landed at MEL on RW34 – and they didn’t retract the gear, did a right turn onto finals and landed. Then they jumped in a taxi and did it over again until they where done.
And then there was the time when he did the high weight flapless landing at MEL – there was dreadful banging coming from somewhere (an inspection door from memory).
The difficulty in getting new pilots not to over flair the DC-9 was another favourite subject – it was apparently easy to drive the main gear into the runway with an over zealous flair.
Alan apparently made his way through the DC fleet – 3, 4 and 6. He told us about the broomstick he used to ‘fly’ the autopilot from the jump seat of the DC-6 – the two front seats were by far the most comfortable in the cockpit and the Captain and FO were not going to get out of them even when they were asleep while the aircraft was droning over the Bight.
I cannot verify any of these stories – but they kept me and my classmates amused at the time. And he is such a nice guy.
Cheers
Pedota