Thanks for the Landing
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www.aviationadvertiser.com.au published the following review by Paul Phelan, of Tall Tails of the South Pacific:
. .
Aviation’s storytellers have always been one of life’s finest gifts to those of us who never took the trouble to write it all down.Their product ranges from the hilarious aviation adventures recounted in AeroClub bars, to the output of raconteurs who’ve actually been there, seen it all,and (happily) preserved big chunks of it on paper.
Many a modern airline pilot’s career is launched before age 20. The pressure is on from Day One to build airline-related qualifications,and there’s little time to soak up the broader aviation environment or even to interface with its history and its myths. That’s a shame because to know and understand aviation in our region as it is today, is to appreciate how it all came together. And quite a lot of today’s intricate safety awareness, systems and ethos were developed the hard way – learning by experience.
It’s therefore thanks to people like John Laming, who must have complied a mountain of detailed notes right throughout his colourful career, that today’s young pilots can reach back in time and appreciate the rich variety of events that shaped today’s more orderly aviation environment. There are plenty of people still in aviation who have similar backgrounds to Laming’s, but very few have chosen to document it.
As a kid in England during WW2, Laming dreamed in school of the Pacific’s “South Sea Islands” while also observing a lot of aviation at close hand; watching random wartime combat events from behind sandbags or other suitable hides. But it wasn’t until he arrived in Australia as a young immigrant in 1947 that he became aviation-involved. Working for an operator at Camden, he also learned to fly in a Tiger Moth, joined the RAAF in 1951, and flew (among others) P-51 Mustangs, Vampires, Lincoln bombers, Dakotas, and VIP Convair440s, Vickers Viscounts and HS748s.
It’s quite revealing that in those days even at the level of government VIP flying, an aircraft type rating was pretty much a matter of studying the flight manual and pilot’s handbook and then jumping into the aeroplane with a more experienced pilot and flying it. He makes life in the postwar RAAFsound like fun as well as giving satisfaction for a job well done.
And all along, Laming either kept a lot of notes or has a total recall.
Looking down the barrel of a non-flying staff job he left the RAAF after 18 years service – a long time for a post-war aviator – and made the transition to civil aviation. First came seven years flying with the (then) Department of Civil Aviation in the airways unit and accident investigation work, before a move into commercial aviation where he found himself in theSouth Sea Islands he’d dreamed about.
During those colourful years Laming flew Fokker F28s and early-model Boeing 737s around the Pacific in one of the world’s most challenging operational environments. Challenging because of the turbulent blend of long sectors, dodgy navaids, forecasts and communications, none-too-long runways, adhoc management decisions and Melanesian office politics. At one South Pacific airline I once saw a comment on the crew room notice board: “Things are so confused here that people are going around stabbing one another in the chest! ”Pilots who’ve been there will be familiar with that scenario, which is often more focused on tribal nepotism and internecine politics than on basic air safety tenets.
That kind of flying has always attracted pilots whose individualism led them away from the day-to-day grind of more conventional airline flying and they, along with their opposite numbers in engineering, have always been the cement that’s held most of the small Pacific states’ airlines together. Laming’s book is prolific in examples.
Thirteen years in the tropics, then back to Europe flying holiday charter jets, before Laming came to rest back in Melbourne flying GA charter and safety consultancy passing on his wealth of experience as a flying and simulator instructor and in aviation safety consulting.
But his note-keeping habit never wavered.
Tall Tails Of The South Pacific offers several attractions for the reader whose interest is the broader background to our aviation scene.It comprehensively brings together clear images of early postwar military,government, airline and general aviation in a single well-detailed canvas. The whole book – all the military and all the civil flying – is richly peppered with operational incident and events including close shaves and accidents, and also names, many of them well-known and some quite famous. Being written first-hand and with convincing detail, it draws humorous incidents entertainingly, and the related yarns help us to understand better what shaped Australasia’s 21st century aviation environment .
That environment continues to change almost daily according to corporate, industrial, regulatory and political pressures, and any young and aspiring pilot in these times will benefit from a deeper understanding of how the aviation industry reached its present condition – and of what needs to keep happening, to straighten the path ahead.
Tall Tails Of The South Pacific – John Laming
. .
Aviation’s storytellers have always been one of life’s finest gifts to those of us who never took the trouble to write it all down.Their product ranges from the hilarious aviation adventures recounted in AeroClub bars, to the output of raconteurs who’ve actually been there, seen it all,and (happily) preserved big chunks of it on paper.
Many a modern airline pilot’s career is launched before age 20. The pressure is on from Day One to build airline-related qualifications,and there’s little time to soak up the broader aviation environment or even to interface with its history and its myths. That’s a shame because to know and understand aviation in our region as it is today, is to appreciate how it all came together. And quite a lot of today’s intricate safety awareness, systems and ethos were developed the hard way – learning by experience.
It’s therefore thanks to people like John Laming, who must have complied a mountain of detailed notes right throughout his colourful career, that today’s young pilots can reach back in time and appreciate the rich variety of events that shaped today’s more orderly aviation environment. There are plenty of people still in aviation who have similar backgrounds to Laming’s, but very few have chosen to document it.
As a kid in England during WW2, Laming dreamed in school of the Pacific’s “South Sea Islands” while also observing a lot of aviation at close hand; watching random wartime combat events from behind sandbags or other suitable hides. But it wasn’t until he arrived in Australia as a young immigrant in 1947 that he became aviation-involved. Working for an operator at Camden, he also learned to fly in a Tiger Moth, joined the RAAF in 1951, and flew (among others) P-51 Mustangs, Vampires, Lincoln bombers, Dakotas, and VIP Convair440s, Vickers Viscounts and HS748s.
It’s quite revealing that in those days even at the level of government VIP flying, an aircraft type rating was pretty much a matter of studying the flight manual and pilot’s handbook and then jumping into the aeroplane with a more experienced pilot and flying it. He makes life in the postwar RAAFsound like fun as well as giving satisfaction for a job well done.
And all along, Laming either kept a lot of notes or has a total recall.
Looking down the barrel of a non-flying staff job he left the RAAF after 18 years service – a long time for a post-war aviator – and made the transition to civil aviation. First came seven years flying with the (then) Department of Civil Aviation in the airways unit and accident investigation work, before a move into commercial aviation where he found himself in theSouth Sea Islands he’d dreamed about.
During those colourful years Laming flew Fokker F28s and early-model Boeing 737s around the Pacific in one of the world’s most challenging operational environments. Challenging because of the turbulent blend of long sectors, dodgy navaids, forecasts and communications, none-too-long runways, adhoc management decisions and Melanesian office politics. At one South Pacific airline I once saw a comment on the crew room notice board: “Things are so confused here that people are going around stabbing one another in the chest! ”Pilots who’ve been there will be familiar with that scenario, which is often more focused on tribal nepotism and internecine politics than on basic air safety tenets.
That kind of flying has always attracted pilots whose individualism led them away from the day-to-day grind of more conventional airline flying and they, along with their opposite numbers in engineering, have always been the cement that’s held most of the small Pacific states’ airlines together. Laming’s book is prolific in examples.
Thirteen years in the tropics, then back to Europe flying holiday charter jets, before Laming came to rest back in Melbourne flying GA charter and safety consultancy passing on his wealth of experience as a flying and simulator instructor and in aviation safety consulting.
But his note-keeping habit never wavered.
Tall Tails Of The South Pacific offers several attractions for the reader whose interest is the broader background to our aviation scene.It comprehensively brings together clear images of early postwar military,government, airline and general aviation in a single well-detailed canvas. The whole book – all the military and all the civil flying – is richly peppered with operational incident and events including close shaves and accidents, and also names, many of them well-known and some quite famous. Being written first-hand and with convincing detail, it draws humorous incidents entertainingly, and the related yarns help us to understand better what shaped Australasia’s 21st century aviation environment .
That environment continues to change almost daily according to corporate, industrial, regulatory and political pressures, and any young and aspiring pilot in these times will benefit from a deeper understanding of how the aviation industry reached its present condition – and of what needs to keep happening, to straighten the path ahead.
Tall Tails Of The South Pacific – John Laming
Last edited by sheppey; 5th Jul 2012 at 10:57.
