Sixties relic, I think we were privileged to fly with Captains that were of the old school, often blokes who served in the Second World War, some had been POWs, most were interesting, some plain frightening, to us young blokes, they were walking,talking enigmas, never quite sure which way they were going to jump, but jesuuus could they fly. I well remember one bloke who took me to the end of the runway at Wabag, showed me the drop, showed me the aircraft that had gone over the edge, (for those who don't know the area, the runway is set in the side of a mountain, and if you run out of runway and ideas, the drop is about 5,000 ft straight down, sure you can glide down into the Baiyer River area but it would not pretty) and then proceeded to berate me on the young pilots TAA had the hide to send to New Guinea, who were basically as useless as tits on a bull, (and I obviously was one of them) and was no doubt the cause of the aircraft lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom, and then proceeded to give me the leg! Never have I been so relieved to reach rotate in my life as the DC3 staggered into the air (she was fully laden with cargo, and police boys) and you know I often think about these things, and listen to two of my kids who both fly (one QF one JQ) and listen to their complaints and have a look at their manuals, and think they don't know they are alive, its all so bloody easy, no Captain is going to make them look over a bloody cliff and basically threaten them, but you know what, I wouldn't swap with them, no way, they will never fly anything as mean, bitchy and beautiful as the 9, they will only ever fly well behaved aircraft with hubcaps, and you talk about humility in our ranks, I think most of us were plain scared, more of the Captains than the aircraft, and it did us no harm at all, and as for higher learning, sh%t what was that, as long as you had your leaving certificate and add 2 plus 2, it was all about your ability to "become one with the aircraft" as my dear old flying instructor used to say, no uni degree will ever take the place of plain good old Airmanship (as was proved by the excellent result on the A320 in the Hudson River) as was previously posted, nah, we were priviliged, and if you look at the amazing safety record both in Australia and New Guinea, we must have done something right, in fact we should be all proud of what we achieved, and top marks to the brilliant Engineers, who kept us flying, their job was not easy, especially in New Guinea, where they would often work thru torential rain (no cushy hangers there) to have the beasts ready to fly next morning, add to that our best mates, the cabin crew, always great company, great humour in all situations, and you could always rely on them to do their job, especially safety wise, and it is beyond me that QF still basically separate pilots and cabin crew with separate hotels and crew buses, it used to embarrass me, I was never quite sure who had the social disease, us or them, but it was never practised in TAA, thankfully, the crew was the crew, good mates all.