The day we arrived in Jakarta, after the arrival ceremony and prayers (We weren’t part of the feasting … luckily because we hadn’t learned that they’re not little shrivelled green beans in the food, they’re dynamite and we’d have made fools of ourselves cryin’ with gushing snotty noses) we were told by the chief pilot we would go down to DGAC and sit the air legislation exam.
We said we hadn’t sighted the book to study it.
“What need a book! You pilots aren’t you?”
We won and got a day or two to read the book.
It was a beauty. Something left over from the Dutch days.
It had diagrams in it.
The most modern planes depicted were DC-3 ish sort of plane for heavies and a Procter for lighties.
Most of the info was what we already knew but a newie for me was, “If you’re aground in your flying boat you should fire shots at thirty second intervals to indicate your plight.
Somewhere else it announced that pilots weren’t to be packin’ pistols in planes so I guess you’d sit on the wing of your sinking machine and yell, “Bang” at thirty second intervals and some cove in a canoe might paddle across, but betchya he’d be comin’ over to see what he could snaffle rather than knowing the signal.
We got fingerprinted that first day.
A fingerprinting technician with his assistant importantly arrived and set up the equipment.
A glass louver, a small bottle of biro ink and a roller.
The technician got handed the opened ink bottle and poured a dollop on the glass then with smooth sweeps or the roller, artistically spread the ink into a thin film. Looked like an operatin' theatre scene with doctor and assistant.
We were grabbed and about three sets of multiple pages of prints were taken. Thumbs, all fingers and palm prints.
Some pages wanted everything; other pages had little boxes for specified digits.
Each of us got done over and was left with outstretched black hands. The ink dried slowly till someone handed us some tissues.
When done, the assistant withdrew some sheets of news paper from his boss’s satchel and carefully cleaned the glass and wrapped it up in other sheets and stowed them.
Off they went, Techo first, followed by the brief case lugging assistant and we headed for the dunny to try and clean out hands.
Needed a few trips as you can only hold your breath for so long.