TAA and the DC-9

[Stationair8]

No that happened in the USA from a B727 during the sixties.

The gentleman exited the B727 via the rear air stairs and parchuted to freedom. Mr D B Cooper was never found, nor the money from the bank robbery and the airstairs on B727 was modified to prevent opening in flight and the modification was called the DB Cooper vane.

The story has been in a number of aviation magazines and also a police show about US criminals that are still on the run.

Perhaps Mr Cooper was part of the SkyAir world team?

[sixtiesrelic]

Stationaie8 do we work together? Mad Mat was talking about this very thing today.

[TechCons]

Minor thread drift (but still vaguguely relevant!) - does anybody have any info of what became of Keith Matner, DC9 Captain with TAA in the late 70's and through the 80's? I was a LAME at 'Ta Ta's' during that period and used to maintain and fly his Grob G109 motor glider which he kept out at Romsey. Was just interested to know what he's doing now - if he's still around? ...... thanks

[Eastwest Loco]

Ahhhh - Crash Axes

I do recall a TN/AN Pilot strike where our EW Pilots had elected to keep flying in the mid eighties.

No TN traffic service was provided in MEL, so I flew over to do LOCO/Traffic.

We were warned that there could be on tarmac action, as there had been some assaults and phone calls to Pilot's homes just after they departed for the day at work (And there were a few incidents around bay 5 that shall not be expanded on) so we taxiied in with no1 shut down, the forward hatch open (Shagger Howell at the helm) with the FO armed with the crash axe and me armed with that nasty red thinggy you used to cleat the ailerons.

It was an interesting couple of days. Very long ones too.

No help whatsoever from TN, but it didn't matter, We got there quite well, with FA's chucking bags on their days off . The crash axe is a wonderful business card though. It identifies you and your intentions without a single word!!

It is amazing what a bloke can to to the TN consolidated plan left alone in Gate 9 with nobody around and a programmers sign-in

Best all

EWL

[James4th]

I believe Keith Mattner still lives in Sunbury.

Glitchfield; was it Bumptious or PG you had as F/O on that Carrier approach in the Straights of Buka?

I have read all the pages now and it has brought back so many memories:- I came out of the wilds of NG after 3 years on the DC3 and straight on to the DC9. It was much against a lot of advice but when you are 25 ........... Eddie Clark did my check to line ML-SY-BN-SY-ML, he flew 3 and I flew one! I must have impressed him- he let me loose.

I later flew with "Red Leader" into CBR when he showed me what the diesel could do with 40 flap AND the speed brakes, Jeez he could fly! I wish those gentlemen were still around.

Geoff Lushy where are you? The little seedlings you gave me in 1972 when I moved onto my little farm are now 50' giants.

Remember the "practice" DMA arrivals at Gove? 340 kts over the "tower" at 600 ft then pulling up over the town, flinging out all the bits and landing to a thunderous ovation from the pax. The bloke in the "tower" (FSU) with his binoculars out on the veranda jumping up and down. How did we get away with it?

Green Island arrivals and departures out of CNS?

To all the gentlemen, (you know who you are) who trained and checked me, put up with my bad jokes and my falling asleep in the cockpit. Put up with my lazy ways when I was an F/O; I just want to tell you I turned out alright and I salute you all. God Bless you and the diesel .......

Just before I go, a story:- During the '90s I returned to OZ on leave from my exile in the desert and went to the Essendon airshow where the was a DC9 from IPEC on show. I was with my 14 year old son (now an A300 F/O in another outpost of Empire) and we walked around the girl for old times sake. I almost made it. But by the time I reached the port wheel assembly I couldnt take it any more and bawled my eyes out for a few minutes.

My son was very embarrassed but he understood and when I said to him
"You see what Aviation has done to me ...... you still want to be a pilot?"

His answer was a resounding yes. What a foolish Band of Brothers we were in those days .........

[Captain Sherm]

Hope Keith Mattner's still enjoying life. A particularly nice guy.

While living in Korea I often reflected on the skippers I learned from who had learned their trade flying RAAF Meteors out of Kimpo and of course Noel Knappstein who flew RAN Sea Furies (and I believe was shot down over Bangwa Island near Kimpo. One melancholy Sunday morning I looked up telstra.com and found Lushey and Knappsteins phone numbers and rang them up in turn for a chat.

Not sure between those two and Guggenheimer who could fly that -9 through the smallest eye of a needle or faster and closer than anyone else. Be a photo finish! Were illegal tactics allowed Ian Smith would win of course! Is he still around?

As I write this I reflect on dear old Peter Muggleton who did my line training on the -9. When he first said, somewhere over BIK that we'd cross SY NDB at 310 and get in I thought he was joking. Pete later that night bought 12 full size bottles of beer for a 36 hour layover in Cairns and when I told him I didn't drink he looked puzzled and said "They're for me son, get your own".

Good though Peter was he didn't quite give me the hang of landing the-9 properly in the first few sectors. (I'd learned in the dark in HNL). That gift was given by Ivan Scown over a few minutes walk and talk through the Tulla terminal. Another gentleman.

Then....there was ted Munro who taught me all there was to know about my beloved 727. Do such men walk those terminals today?

Safe flying

Sherm

[Stationair8]

Comuing back to an earlier post, did TAA/Australian do any command upgrades on the DC-9 during the last few years of operation?

Did TAA/Australian do the Ipec Aviation training when they introduced the DC-9 Freighter?

[john_tullamarine]

Did TAA/Australian do the Ipec Aviation training when they introduced the DC-9 Freighter?

Yes. I can still clearly recall the grand old man's having a few worries in the first bits of the sim package .. then, an epiphany ! He came out of the first session with some standby power work with a light trip to the step and the typical grin from ear to ear beneath the beard .. "Mate .. it flies just like a real aeroplane without all that other s*** !" He went on to acquire quite a reputation for his ability to paint the 9 onto the runway at the end of each sector. Guess I'll never finish that DC3 endorsement with him with so many years now having passed ...

After a period under Ta-Taa's tutelage, IPEC took over check and training responsibilities. That was during Dennis C's time at the helm.

The only regret I have ... too long on the Goose (but that's another story) and didn't get to have a pole of the 9.

[Capt Claret]

Hey Sherm,

Would you care to share the "walk and talk"? I used to think the DH8 was the worst aircraft to land nicely, then after 6 years on the 146 which was a breeze, along came the 717.

Bloody great aeroplane to fly, but damned challenging to land nicely.

[teresa green]

Glitchfield has written a excellent book, (so good my son has made off with it and lost it up the track somewhere) and I will have to get another, so I suggest you send him a email and get a copy, it is great reading (no I am not his agent)! Glitchfield was a legend in TAA (for plenty of reasons)! but his flying ability was one of them.

[teresa green]

James the 4th around what time did you spend in New Guinea. Where you there around the same time as "greasy" 'argus" and "kauso" "digger" and the rest of the bast#rds?

[James4th]

Teresa, I was there 68-71 as an F/O in Madang. Flew with Greasy and the other old bastards, Argus left as I joined. A great time was had by all A?

[sixtiesrelic]

Ah! Jimmy the fourth, I was there for your last two years but with the other mob.
What comes glaringly through with this thread and some others from the older generation is the humility.
We looked up to the old boys and wanted to learn from 'em.
I hear today, that quality isn't as prominent.
"I've got a degree" seems to abound amongst a good percentage of the "boys".
I guess it stems from Keating keeping kids at school and going on to uni as the norm.
The dills who are too afraid to go out into the world remain in the cloisters and study normal people to make up courses on how to get on with each other, or how to do what comes naturally most people.
Gawd, equity and diversity courses we are forced to endure at work and Occupational Health & Safety... Who's gunna stick an electric drill up his nose and pull the trigger?
Talk to tradesmen and they don't want eighteen year old apprentices because they know it all.
Fourteen year olds are more ready to listen and learn though.
I have talked to a number of our old cronies and found that probably seventy five percent of us thought we were in the bottom ten percent of the staff;
we were sort of frauds and somehow MANAGED to scrape through checks.
Felt guilty at not knowing and remembering enough and having to swot before checks.
Yet later on some find blokes saying, "I looked up to you".
Hell I wonder if these poor buggers who are taught to let the auto pilot FMC do it all will have these discussions.
The engineers won!
Computers are doin' it all AND there's no dog needed because the pilots are educated.

[PLovett]

sixtiesrelic, I would have agreed with you until the recent "Hudson River 1 Arrival" has shown that real pilots are still needed.

Now please, more diesel stories because I cannot tell you how much I am enjoying this thread.

[Aye Ess]

If I had to choose the least favoured job for the FO,it would have to be the internal tail inspection. For those dear readers who are not familiar with DC9 ops; on the first flight of the day,the FO had to enter the tail via the drawbridge, that was the pull down ceiling above the rear ventral stairs. Inside the tail it was dark(no windows),hot(outside the airconditioned area) & NOISY( shared space with the APU). We had to check emergency slide pressure,enough tape left on the crash recorders & any suspicious devices which may have been hidden aboard. We were a nuisance to catering who couldn't come up the back stairs,cleaners who couldn't leave by the backstairs & flight attendants because we were holding everything up.

[TechCons]

...... and while we're down the back end of the aircraft - if the aft cabin door was opened and latched back onto it's restraint catch on the outside of the toilet wall, you could not then open the toilet door. One of the apprentices on my shift was trapped in the bog for about 3 hours in the hangar one night shift because everyone had finished on the aircraft and then buggered off

[teresa green]

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.

[Wiley]

It’s interesting (and illuminating) to see here people with some serious experience under their belts reminiscing about the days before they got onto the -9. An outsider might put it another way: “It’s interesting to see who were the people who flew the -9 and where they came from.”

As one who, being ex-military, cannot claim to have gone through it myself, (so no self-congratulations involved here), I believe the Australian GA system, produced quite possibly the finest "product" for airlines possible - a far better all round operator than any of today's cadet schemes could ever hope to produce. GA was (and I suspect still is) a self-culling system which got rid of most (I accept, only "most") of the dross before the pilot presented himself to an airline.

I base this opinion on having trained quite a few of them and flown with many more, both as their FO and their captain.

I think the current system favoured by many of the world's airlines, (conceived originally by BA?), of training their pilots from scratch "so they won't learn any bad habits" before they join the airline is misconceived in the extreme. You end up with a pilot who's very good at what he does, (in a very narrow field), but with virtually no experience in aviation of anything else, so that the very first time he gets a really bad fright and has to deal with it, he may have 350+ people immediately behind him and in his care.

A pilot with 1500 hours or more in GA under his belt before he starts in an airline - (particularly, in my opinion, those who gained some of that experience in PNG) - had dealt with myriad situations, the odd one laced with pure terror, and made decisions no cadet would ever be likely to see.

As I’ve already mentioned, today's ex-cadets are good at their jobs, I'll not argue with that, but if one day something totally out of left field presents itself, (like the recent "Hudson River One" STAR), I wonder who the pax down the back would prefer to have up front? A pilot of the old school who’s had a few frights and dealt with a few unusual situations in a 206 in the New Guinea Highlands or their equivalent, or one of the increasingly large proportion of airline captains of today who’ve been trained from Day One to engage the autopilot at 200’ on takeoff and to leave it in until 200’ on finals?

Indeed some airlines (my current employer for one) insist that the highest available level of automation be used at all times on the line – (the direct antithesis of Ernie Gann’s captain from ‘Fate is the Hunter’ who lit matches under his FO’s chin as the FO flew an instrument approach in trying conditions). The letter announcing this policy contained the unforgettable phrase: “...the line is no place to practise your flying skills”. My immediate question on reading this was: “Well where else am I going to do it?”

I’m not advocating we light matches under our FOs’ chins, but some of the stories I’ve read on this thread of the things we learned from those old, sometimes irascible ‘old time’ captains who we still highly esteem to this day make me wonder if we might be doing the next generation of aviators no favours with what has become the norm in Aviation today.

[Stationair8]

Couldn't do those things today as OH&S people would require to have a safety jacket, special boots with non slip souls, a safety fence 30 metres back from the drop, special signage and least 101 other things plus a manual to cover possible scenarios!!!!

It must have a been a bloody big step to go from the DC-3 to the 9, bit like trying to take a drink out of a fire hydrant!!!

[sixtiesrelic]

Well Treesa I think we have to look further back to compare the olden days with now.
The reason we were afraid, or was it “fearful respect” of the Captain, was taught to us from infanthood.
We didn’t call an adult male anything other than mister or uncle. (I called the old man’s bosses Captain, like Captain Dowey and Captain Chapman).
The CANE; we all copped it for infractions at school and the belt wielded at home.
Oh yes! We hear the stories of the brutal teachers and drunken fathers givin’ the kids “the Fridee night beltin’ for what the kids hadn’t been caught doing durin’ the week”, but like the cops takin’ kids behind the cop shop and givin’ them a beltin’ with their great big police belt, I never met any of those victims or cop any unjust punishment.
The squibs who couldn’t cop the pain or more likely the embarrassment, made sure they were good all the time.
The warriors knew the outcome for being half smart and took the risk and then showed the class their bravery by not “Pullin’ back” as the cane descended or doing “the hand flicking dance” after the cuts and strolled back to their desk showing no pain.
We were taught respect not today’s “You got rights”.
Now the silly buggers show their warriorhood in their cars or bashing enemies on their computer games
It all started with women getting more say!
They said, ”You’re not hurting MY boy” just like all the black mothers have done for millions of years.
The warriors told the women to shut up and the poor little darlins’ went happily off with the men to be terrorised and hurt, coming out the other end as a warrior.
(Those long houses we flew over were the “pinnacle of civilisation”… Blokes and tough boys in one house; women, babies, pigs, girls and squibs in the other one.)
Women… don’t want anyone hurtin’ their boy who is exempt from “the trials”, so he doesn’t have to prove his manhood but WANT a warrior for a protective husband for themselves and their daughters…HAAA!
Women don’t see the same old invisible bullyin’ going on, amongst kids today as has always happened. Respect is what all kids expect from the younger ones AND they get it.
Gees! We jumped off bloody high bridges, crapping ourselves before hand, to show we deserved the respect of the older kids.
Did it many times and learned to hold ya’ nose, ‘n cross ya’ legs. Learned by experiencing the pain.
Now there’s signs and high fences like Stationair8 mentions. WE’LL know the nose and legs bit when we leap out of the top door in a ditched Jumbo. Have to pull the heads of the shriekers out of the water after we land and save ‘em won’t we.
The rapid rise that occurred with Virgin and maybe Jetstar has me reeling.
I know an aged F.O. (got in much too late). He told me a story about the FMC coming up with three obviously wrong, top of Descent points when he punched in the numbers.
He said, “Ah bugger this, I’ll go down at three times my height plus… ah… seven miles for this tail wind”.
Captain; young, possibly was a Nevergo Captain before hitting the bigtime. Asked him to explain.
After digesting the information he got out his little book and wrote the formula down.
THAT’S what’s missing now. The old‘n bold, passing the rat cunning onto the younger blokes.
Older blokes can do great big sums in their heads... got the cane for getting’ four outa ten in mental arithmetic tests.
Don’t need a mobile phone to calculate the wattage available at a power point for theatre lights.
240 X 10. I couldn’t believe THAT when I saw it. Three uni students all headed for the phone to use the calculator.
I’m not saying for a moment ALL younger people. The percentage is aweful bloody high tho.

As for going from a DC-3 to the 9…
Mate I salute you.
That was one hell of a step.
I was struggling from the 3 to the Friendship and again F27 to the DC-9.