Ah but back in Madang in the olden days, you were sylph like Tinny.
One of the interesting phenomena in the Mouse was the number of 'Call me Captains' in the subsidiaries.
Blokes who were SENIOR captains in tinpot concerns were right up themselves, yet the senior Jet blokes, except for a few Melbournians (and they are a different breed anyway) in the mainlines knew they'd 'made it' and didn't need to strut and demand respect.
The subs had some real interesting captains too who were a bit of a law unto themselves and did things their way. Yeah! I know both TAA and Ansett had one each of them too.
A mate told me stories of one old F27 commander who had his own letdowns out in western NSW. "Bugger the letdown charts leave them in ya bag son!"
He had checked out the lay of the country and did his own NDB runway approaches.
'When ya've flown through flack and had coves shootin' bullets at ya son ya get a strong sense of survival and common sense".
Musta worked because they didn't crash in the Mouse.
The FOs had to have a sort of library of "How this bloke wants things done" that he raked up from his memory when he signed on.
The old Bast*rds flew THEIR way every leg unless they were being checked, then without ever practising, flew beautiful by the book check flights.
We learned a lot from all their little ways though, which came in handy when little surprises caught us out.
SOPs... safe but prooduce monkeys...Those who've flown aeroplanes with interesting colour schemes in the lower latitudes can tell ya stories.