Bill's Blog

Gunnedah 1949

2008-07-05T10:54:00.003-07:00

Once upon a time, a rather confused, fifteen year old boy was cut loose from adult guidance to find his place in the world in a small bush town on the Northwest Slopes of New South Wales.

His only relative, a sister Mary, had left town to secure what she thought was a better future with an itinerant surveyor who promised her a better life than bookkeeping at the Boggabri Framers’ Co-Operative.

Having failed the Third Year of high school and lost his scholarship at a fancy boarding school in Sydney, Bill was forced to repeat the school year to secure the very basic Intermediate Certificate issued by the New South Wales Department of Education. Two weeks into the year, Bill rode the bus twenty-five miles to Gunnedah Intermediate High School and announced to the Principal, “Ook” Whitbread that he would be his new student. Graciously, Mr. Whitbread admitted him and placed him in 3B sitting in the front row next to the class nerd, whose face covered in teenage pimples.

But Bill was a bright lad despite his recent failure at the prestigious Jesuit college in the Big Smoke and soon was upgraded to the more elite, 3A. And better yet, he was recruited to sit in the back of the class with the ‘in’ crowd of local blokes: John Jones, Rossie Norman and the rest of the footy team. Bill was not a great sportsman, but had a quick wit and as the curriculum was very much below what he had in Sydney, he was able to be a smarty pants and earn the respect of his peers, if not his teachers.

Luckily, John Jones’ parents took a shine to Bill and allowed him to stay with them. Mary was still sending 10/- a week for his board and this seemed fair to the Jonses. He shared a twin bed with his mate John in the sleep-out at the back of their house by the single railroad track leading north to Moree and south to Sydney. Soon however, with John’s help, he got a job selling newspapers at two of the local pubs: The Royal and the Court House Hotels on Conadilly Street. Not a bad lurk! Bill borrowed Mr. Jones’ bike and John and he would rendezvous at the Gunnedah Railway Station at 5 PM, collect their 100 Daily Telegraph and 20 Sydney Morning Herald newspapers, secure them between the upturned handlebars, and head downtown to their pubs.

“Laaaaay-up, laaaaay-up,” he yelled as he entered the six-o’clock swill at the Bar. Quietly he would go from table to table in the Lounge asking, “Paper sir? Madam?” Papers were tuppence, and most of the drinkers who had their schooners lined up on the bar or window-sill, gave him a thrippenny bit and winked at the change. The Lounge offered better tips, but was not shoulder to shoulder like the Public Bar. Not a bad job for the fifteen year old.

Not content with the newspaper job, Bill introduced himself to the local photographer, Keith Riley, a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society who having avoided military service in World War 2 had made a pile of money taking pictures of the ‘diggers’ prior to their leaving the nearby military camp enroute to the Middle East to defend the Empire. Keith and his attractive wife, Joyce, a relative of a local squatter family, the Heaths, offered Bill a job taking photographs at local dances – ‘candids’ as they were then called. This was great fun and allowed Bill enough pocket money to relieve his sister’s burden of supporting him. It also allowed him to upgrade his clothes now looking a bit worn. These new threads attracted the attention of the local girls who while they did not consider him future husband material, found him a bright spot in this rather quiet country town. And, he was a foreigner! Yes, Bill had never forgotten that his parents had not only left him their kind regards, but a birth certificate which showed he was an American!

Being a good Catholic boy, he did not join the Church of England Youth Fellowship with John Jones, but searched for a Catholic alternative. The local parish priest, Monsignor McDermott, had decided that the Young Christian Workers (YCW) was the choice of youth groups for catholic Gunnedah.

The YCW became a focus in Bill Critch’s life. Guided by his close friendship with its president, Bill Clegg, he could see the advantage of being associated with a fraternal group of young men and women: trips away from Gunnedah to visit other YCWs, dances at the Parish Hall, and an imprimatur from the priests which allowed him to associate socially with ‘cockeys’ (farmers,) business owners and professionals beyond the social contacts of the Jones’ family. And his new job as a photographer gave him entrée and some small standing in the community.

But the Saturday afternoon in the Jones house showed him another side of Australian life.

On a hot, busy Saturday in Jones’ yellow frame house on Wentworth Street next to the railway tracks leading into town, the corrugated iron roof would crack and snap in anger at the Outback summer’s heat. The kitchen was a cream painted room with a black woodstove, a tiny sink with a simple, copper faucet leading out to the metal fresh water tank connected by downspouts from the iron roof. The ‘Fridge’ throbbed in the corner, its compressor competing with the heat from the open window.

Mrs. Violet Jones always cooked on Saturday. But why heat up the kitchen on an Australian summer day?

The woodstove had a dual task. Fired up early Saturday morning it was for cooking and security. Mrs. Jones baked on Saturday, but as she formed her scones and mixed the Sunday sponge cake, she knew that the real purpose of the blazing stove was not only to ensure a fully risen sponge, but to prevent the Sydney Police’s Flying Squad from finding the evidence of her husband, John’s Saturday business.

John Sr. had an illegal, Starting Price, horseracing ‘book’ and the betting slips were carefully stacked in the living room. If front door was opened on the Squad’s command, to “Open up, this is the police!” the slips would be thrown into the stove.

Behind the house where copies of the bets were stashed in a bottle ready for a long throw into the tall grass, John Junior and Bill watched and waited in relaxed anticipation for a ‘bust’ which rarely happened. Why? The Clerk of Petty Sessions and the local constabulary were all punters who laid their bets with big John. If they knew the Sydney cops were in town, a quick call to Jones would shut down the operation till the threat passed and headed north to Boggabri and Narrabri!

Bill and John were inseparable. Neither excluded the other from his life: Bill helped John with his homework, John ensured his mates were Bill’s mates. They rode their bikes everywhere: to sell their papers, to collect the small bets for Big John’s bookmaking business, out to Cushan’s swimming hole, and up onto the Porcupine, the hill overlooking Gunnedah. They ‘hung out’ down the lane with John’s future wife, Shirley Southorn and her brothers, and played under the street light until bedtime.

On his sixteenth birthday, Bill left high school and went to work full time as a photographer with Riley. He learned most of the tasks required of a small town photo studio: developing and printing, enlarging, lighting and portraiture, weddings, debutante balls, and when the boss was away, cuddling in the darkroom with compliant girlfriends. Even now, Bill’s libido is still stimulated by the smell of Kodak D-76 developer and fond memories of Carmel and Patricia.

The Jones were Bill’s anchor and for six months, his surrogate parents. However, the workload of two teenage boys became too much for Vi, a tiny woman with a huge heart and a true Aussie ‘mum’. She sorrowfully told Big John to ask Bill to look for another home. But the parental feeling remained for many years and John Jr. and Bill remained mates until John’s death.

Ozzie and Eileen Cross lived around the corner. They were younger, liberally minded couple who offered Bill their hospitality and provided room and board to this young, still confused, rudderless boy who had not yet set his sails. He had met their pubescent daughter, Beverly, at school and they were friends – not boyfriend/girlfriend, just friends. Beverly was a good swimmer and as there was no public (nor private) swimming pool, she and Bill enjoyed swimming at Cushan’s, the local swimming hole on the slow moving Namoi River. John and his steady girlfriend, Shirley Southorn, also swam at Cushan’s, but Shirley was never one to allow another girl to catch John’s eye and he seemed to like Beverly, a tomboy like her mother, Eileen. Shirley kept a tight rein on John and several years later, they married.

Now eighteen, Bill was eager to return to Sydney and enjoy what he envisioned as a more exciting social life. When Keith Riley decided to close the studio and take an extended vacation in Europe, Bill made plans to move to Sydney.

Late one night while visiting a YCW friend on duty at the Post office telephone exchange, he made a free long distance telephone call to an old friend, Bob Bower, who lived in Waverley, a Sydney suburb. Mr. and Mrs. Bower who had known Bill’s mother, agreed that he could live with them an find a job in Sydney.

He put his bicycle in Cross’s back shed, packed his suitcase and got a free lift to Sydney in the back of a friend’s ‘ute’, waved goodbye to Gunny and disappeared into the night.

Eight hours later, he began his Sydney adventure.

Bill's Story Part 1

2007-11-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

William H. Critch II

I was not always “Bill Critch”. After birth I quickly became Bunny, Billy, Billy Brown Bear, then ‘Critch’, Master Critch, Critchey, Private Critch, Aviation Cadet Critch, Captain Critch, Pop, Benjamin Pink, Mr. Bill and finally, Bill.

Baby Billy’s Recollections

I see bright sunshine.
I hear a phonograph playing “Me and My Shadow”, and I am throwing my toys down a long flight of stairs.
I am riding a ‘kiddy car’, on broad but not busy streets. It is hot.
I'm in a car with other people somewhere in the mountains on a hot, narrow, dusty road. I am playing with a silver ashtray. I throw it out the car window. We stop at a place that is green and someone's climbing on a stone that's larger than I am.
A soft-spoken and gentle woman tells me not to go in the swampy lake. There are insects flying around my head.
The second floor of a sparsely furnished, wood-frame apartment. From high on the back steps I see gray freight trains close by.

The California Fog Begins to Clear.

I am holding a streamlined, black toy train. It smells of lubricating oil and the On/Off switch is very large especially now that I have taken it apart and the body is removed. I hand the clockwork innards to a big man who puts it down and begins to read the ‘funnies’ section of the Sunday newspaper. My favorite strip is Buck Rogers. Black Barney, Doctor Huer, Buck and his young protégés, Buddy and Alura excite me with their adventures fighting the Martian cat people and the Mongol hordes, the evil Killer Kane and his ‘squeeze’, Ardala Valmar. In the minds of the authors Philip Nowlan and the illustrator, Army Air Corps Lt. Dick Calkins they represent the foreign aggressors who will soon throw the world into war.

We are in a very busy outdoors place with many people. The people I am used to seeing every day do not say the usual softly spoken words to me. They are concerned with the other big people. I cannot understand what's happening. It's not frightening but it's not the usual routine of being washed, dressed and fed. A large, noisy moving machine is very close and my mother is talking loudly. My father is talking loudly and quickly. My sister is on the ground, but she gets up.

We are in a small space with the steamer trunks - large trunks that I shall remember for the rest of my life. I see suitcases, I feel secure. The smell around me is a ‘new’ smell like the paint on the black; toy train but there is no train. But I can and see Dutchie, the girl doll I have undressed. I hold Teddy out of a round window smell my teddy bear and I hold him tight or he will fall down into the water.

The Voyage to Australia, 1934

While the voyage to Australia was great fun for a four-year-old, my sister Mary tells me it was embarrassing for my mother. She was all too aware that we were not allowed to leave the ship until we arrived in Sydney. My father, an accountant with a serious drinking problem, had surrendered the family passport in return for free repatriation to Australia. We were ‘charity’ cases of the Great Depression with our passage paid by the U.S. government to ease the drain on the economy that was paying foreigners unemployment benefits. But for me, it was my first adventure. En route to Pearl Harbor, ‘white hat’ US Navy sailors took me on their backs in the swimming pool and the bar tenders gave me root beers. Hawaii and Pearl Harbor were just names. I knew nothing of the rest of the world and the coming war. The boat was a happy place for me. People were friendly, let me talk or sit with them on the deck chairs.

My sister’s Memoirs describe our landing in Sydney:

“While we waited for port clearance, we anchored for several hours out in the stream near Fort Denison, known as Pinchgut, a bare knob of rock with a miniature stone fort. The sky was clear blue, the water sparkled, and on this Saturday afternoon the harbor was dotted with sailboats and ferries. While deep enough for ocean-going liners, the harbor is narrow and the shoreline is indented with scores of sheltered coves, all edged in lush parks and gardens and houses with red-tiled roofs.
Leaning on the rail, we watched the tugboats with their thick hawsers nuzzling the Mariposa toward the pier. The ship made a slow turn to port, helped by four tugboats. Soon we were going down the starboard gangplank and the pleasure trip was over
After Customs clearance the agent returned Father’s passport, shook hands, and said, “Welcome home.” Father then turned to mother and said: “Addie, we’re home.” Mother said nothing. He was not at all concerned that he had only £3 (about $15) to feed and house the family.…
Father called a cab; we loaded it with our three large steamer trunks, and asked the driver to suggest a suburb where we might find an apartment. Near the docks we drove through streets of terrace houses welded into one mass from corner to corner; houses with strings of gray washing hanging on the lacy iron balconies. Then up busy William Street with Darlinghurst on the right and infamous Kings Cross on the left. After a discussion with the driver, this area was deemed too expensive. At his suggestion, we drove on for another ten minutes to Bondi Beach and its acres of cookie-cutter brick houses with red tiled roofs and meager front yards, enclosed by low wire fences. Neither a garage nor a tree in sight...

Driving slowly, we saw a “To Let” sign on a decrepit apartment building next to the Royal Hotel opposite the beach boardwalk known as Campbell Parade, the fish and chip belt of Bondi Beach. The narrow, dead-end lane separating the apartments from the hotel was littered with orange peel, lolly wrappers and old newspapers. We waited in the cab while Father went inside. He soon returned and paid off the driver, who said, “Good luck, mate.” Typical of Father, he had talked the manager into waiving a deposit for the first week’s rent!”

Growing Up in Bondi

For me however, it was a fun place - vacant lots, kids to play with and a ‘sleep-out’ of my own on the front balcony. It was here on the back stairs that I found a cardboard carton of toys including a small train set and a Russian Cossack doll we named “von Skirtz”. I was never told where they came from but as it was Christmas I believed it to be a gift from Jesus. It was in Bondi Beach that I formed an attachment to our bread knife that accompanied mother and I wherever we moved. It was the family’s general-purpose tool used for cutting string, paper, vegetables, meat and in the near future as a potential weapon. We ‘shifted’ (moved) frequently in 1939 but it was within a small radius and I kept the same friends. They had toys - new to me but associated with my heroes: Buck Rogers Disintegrators and Rocket Pistols.

We moved to North Bondi near Ben Buckler, close to the cliffs. I stood on the bluff and watched the waves and the surf fisherman hundreds of feet below - Ocker Aussies - Iron Men. Down the road on Bondi Beach I discovered Peter’s Ice Cream and Minties – the white, sweet, chewy lolly wrapped in a red, white and green paper. The tram terminus nearby was my first sight of the ‘toast rack’ trams that would provide our usual means of transportation for many years. Trams filled with smokers and steamy, sweaty bodies, conductors on the running boards saying, “Fez Pleeze” loom large in my memory. Those men earned their wages clinging in the cold and rain to the swaying tram on the 12-inch footboard. Frequently newspaper boys would cling to and work the other side of the tram’s footboard pressing close when another tram passed at their back. “Getcher latest Telly, Laaay-up.” When they had canvassed the entire tram and it was clear, they would ‘dismount’ by stretching their arm to full extent still grasping the door railing. They would then let go landing on one foot and pivoting 180 degrees to lean forward facing the rear so that their bodies were angled to absorb the forward motion of the departing tram. In later years, I too was a newsboy, but never on trams.

And Bronte

I was six years old when we moved to the suburb of Bronte Beach. It was the last time we lived together as a family. Our rental house across from what is now Bronte Park was still standing at the corner of Alfred and Hewlett Streets when I visited Bronte in 1970. The park was the ‘gully’ inhabited by the fierce “Gully Gang” whom we never saw. There were some ‘big kids’, but if we saw them in the gully, we’d run off. We did discover some depressions in the brush-covered areas. These I suspect, were ‘pozzies’ for the local blokes and their compliant sheilas. Sexual consciousness was now raising its delightful head, and my neighbor girl, Betty Dietcham, attempted to give me an introduction. It was lost on me but she was a great ‘mate’. We walked the fences behind our houses, made mixtures of anything to be found in the kitchen, played ‘hidings’ under the street light till our parents called us, went to the flicks on Bondi Road and pretended we were the actors. We dug a hole in the back yard to make a ‘fort’ or ‘cubby-hole’. An old canvas awning pole was our cannon and the pit was lined with cast off clothing. We scrounged corrugated iron for the roof and supported it with scrap lumber from the gully. After all, we had to defend our house - this was World War 2 and the Japanese had captured Singapore. Mary’s bedroom windows were taped to preclude any bomb driven, flying glass.

Following a late evening ambulance trip to the Children’s Hospital in Camperdown for suspected diphtheria, my sexual awakening occurred. The wards were crowded with iron cots filled with boys and girls. The nurses wore either stiff veils with the point in the center of their back, or small starched caps on the front of their head. I looked down the ward and saw a large, high-ceilinged room full of beds with white covers. Mine was covered with a transparent tent and when Mum came to visit, they lifted the side. Mum looked inside and held my hand, which was unusual for we were not a visibly affectionate family. The warmth was there, but it was not expressed in a tactile way. Even when I was older, I cannot recall many kisses or touches. The same was true of my father, but I recall times when he put his arm on my shoulder. I suspect we were never a touchy-feely, ‘lovey-dovey’ kind of family.

It was at the Children’s Hospital that my sexual awakening finally occurred. Excited by an urgent need to micturate, I persuaded the girl in the bed adjoining mine to allow me to join her and conduct an exploration of her lower parts. Penetration seemed appropriate, but like all boys of my age, the ejaculation was not semen. I persuaded her that she had wet the bed and to call for the nurse to change the sheets. The nurse scolded her while I covered myself with the blanket and pretended I was fast asleep. What a bomb-out at age seven!

My father however, gave me a real bomb. It was an unloaded Mills bomb, a hand grenade, which he had liberated as a souvenir from his employer, The Ministry of Munitions. From the pathway at the side of the house he pulled the pin and threw it across the road to the park across the street. I don’t know how I knew, but then as now I realize that he had done this before many times. I kept the bomb until the day following my own similar demonstration at school. The Army representatives were quite nice. All they wanted to know was where it came from. By this time, Dad had departed to the Army repatriation Hospital.

Surf’s Up!

Bronte is on the Tasman Sea and has big waves. Not a great surfing beach and somewhat dangerous because of the undertow. There was a Surf Lifesaving club who stood watch on weekends. I learned to swim in a bogey hole. The Bronte Bogey Hole is protected from the ocean by a ring of rocks and at high tide is open to the surf. You learned to swim and loved it, or had a lifetime fear of the water. I love the surf. Either my sister or I, were given a rubber ‘Surf-O-Plane’, a small inflatable raft about a body wide and a yard long. Surfing on the raft was terrifyingly exciting, but as safe as you wanted to be. You could skim the baby waves, get outside the first line of breakers, or float between the lines. Great for the lungs, too. We had no tire pump to inflate the raft, so if you deflated it to walk home, the next time you and your mate would blow it up again. Body surfing could be tackled in stages. The first thing I learned was that if a wave ‘dumps’ you turning you over and over, swim for the bottom. The turbulence was less and other than collecting a lot of sand in your ‘cozzie’ you were pretty safe. The next thing I learned was to dive through a breaking wave; basic survival in the ocean for a six year old.

And survival it was. Even at this tender age we knew that to surf was to be alive and to be able at some distant time, to enter a man’s world. We quickly learned the lingo: “How’re the shoots?” (Never ‘waves’). Responses would be short and to the uninitiated, cryptic. “Great,” “Ar - Bluebottles”, “Bit sharky.” Waves were judged with the same precision as Eskimos judge the quality of snow. “Too much water”, “Dumper! (everybody off.) or for good shoots" Everybody on!” I was never a great surfer even in my teens, but was always ready to “Give it a go!”

By climbing down the cliffs, one of my mates and I learned how to avoid paying the tuppence admission fee and sneak into the ‘big’ pool at the end of the beach. This was ‘big kid’ stuff. Now, in my 60s, looking up at the route we took down the cliffs gives me a very nervous feeling in my anal sphincter. The pool is still there and it is still open to the ocean. Quite refreshing - particularly when the surf is up. The green water crashes against the bath’s gray cement and quickly rises vertically to spill a small part into the pool. If the tide was high I was frightened that sharks would be waiting for me when I swam. The baths were made of cement that was very rough on the body, but the surrounding sunbathing decks were full of splinters.

Sunday mornings at the baths were a ritual; it was men’s country. No one considered why women were excluded—Australia in their minds was a man’s world. How wrong we were. The backbone of Australia was the Aussie Mum

My mother once noticed a boy limping up the Alfred Street hill. Ever the compassionate nurse, she removed a long splinter and gave him what she could ill afford, the bus fare up the hill. I’m sure that it came for the small housekeeping money she had saved. I now suspect that my dad drank much of his salary although unlike other countries, children could NOT enter the Public Bar. On the rare times he took me out, I would sometimes stand outside the pub and wait for him to finish drinking. But Dad was never mean – just a quiet drunk. I suspect, his experiences in France during the First War would now have qualified him for some kind of treatment or counseling for post traumatic stress disorder.

Tammy and the Social Security Office

2007-10-20T06:56:00.001-07:00

You have to know my daughter Tammy to appreciate this..

Forty years ago I got both my daughters their Social Security numbers. Don’t ask me what was on my mind that day, but I not only gave the wrong name for Tamara, but I gave the wrong birth date. She was listed as Tammy and her birth date was five days off.

Several months ago, she was subjected to an I.R.S. audit and her accountant noticed the discrepancy in her records.

“I think you should fix this Social Security data” he said, “and soon!”

At her request and seeing it was my screw-up, I looked up the requirements on the web. Seems as ‘tho all she needed was a current passport and maybe a birth certificate. She collected the documents and checked in by drawing a number at the Downtown Seattle Social Security Office on 8th and Lenora.

Ever been in a Social security Office? Well, I have been there several times in the last five years and the customers are not all savory folk; actually there’s a lot of low-lifes and why they gather there I can only imagine.

Seen Tammy lately? She dresses in Escada, Hermes, Chanel, David Yurman and in her Jimmy Choo’s, she’s almost 6 feet of gorgeous womanhood. Very impressive and she keeps up with her clientele of high-end restaurateurs, local celebrities and the Seattle ‘in’ crowd. Sitting in the Social Security Waiting Room she was definitely out of place catching up on her Blackberry e-mail. But she took a number, was cool and waited her turn.

When it came, she put her documents on the shelf in front of the window and faced a large lady who no doubt had put up with a lot of crap that morning and was in no mood to be trifled with.

“Watcher need, girl,” she asked looking up at her antithesis who was probably about the same age but definitely not from her ‘hood’.

“I need a new Social Security card. My name’s not correct and my birth date is in error. My dad got it wrong when he registered me about 40 years ago,” said Tammy.

“Whaddya mean, got it wrong?”

“Well, for some reason he forgot.”

At this, the large, very Southern woman began to laugh very loudly and slap her large, larded sides and thighs and immediately called out to the other ‘ladies’ in the office, “Get a load of this will ya. This girl’s father didn’t remember her name or her birth date! Ha, ha, ha!”

The rest of the office of large women gathered around the window and joined in the laughter.

“He didn’t even remember her birthday” continued the woman, “or her proper name.”

Now Tammy, or should I correctly say Tamara, has inherited many of our better qualities. She has her mother’s memory, her calm charm, but alas she has her father’s smart mouth.

“Well,” said Tammy. “At least I knew who he was!”

The laughter immediately stopped. The dark faces turned red with anger. This was not a multi-cultural group. No sir!

“Get out of here, girl. Next time you come in you’ll need.....” and the woman reeled off a list of unnecessary documents.

Tammy exited as gracefully as possible and licked her wounds in her large, red, Mercedes convertible. Then she laughed and laughed. I guess she did inherit my sense of humor after all.

DITLIP 1992 or a Day In The Life of an Instructor Pilot

2007-01-03T15:07:00.000-07:00

DITLIP
or
A Day In the Life of an Instructor Pilot

The instructor pilots in this story are not the usual ones that hang around your local airport trying to build up time to get a ‘real job’ flying for an airline or a corporation. No, these instructors have many thousands of hours and mostly flew in the United States military, or for an airline that went ‘belly-up’. They are true professionals who would look great in a full-page advertisement for an airplane manufacturer. These instructors in this story flew for what was at the time, the Boeing Commercial Airplane Company. The story is set in the mid Nineties and is a composite of many of the situations that they found themselves in: at home, on a foreign ‘Line Assist’ or instructing in the simulator in a non-U.S. country.

To their wives (and girl friends), their supervisor and their stock broker, they are often a will-o-the-wisp frequently seen only at Oh-dark thirty hours. This gives rise to the belief that they are closely related the North American sasquatch.

INSTRUCTOR A

Seattle

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz Rrrrring!!!!!!

4.00 a.m.

Wife: “Honey, would you catch that alarm before it wakes the baby! Who do you have this morning? Same class? Well, I’ll see you around five. And DON’T FORGET OUR DATE TOMORROW NIGHT. It’s been weeks since we went out together.”

Arrgh! Friday morning, way to go! Nearly finished with this bunch and it’s been an interesting class, or maybe I should say, challenging. First time I’ve had a compressed schedule in a long time and it sure was a short night. Well, Monday they get their check rides. My captain is really sharp but the FO is slow. Hope he improves today. Hmmm. I wonder if he is someone the airline customer wants Boeing to pass judgment on. Just my good fortune to be Program Lead and no one to lean on.

INSTRUCTOR B

In Flight over the South China Sea

Who was it said that ‘the dawn comes up like thunder out of China ‘cross the bay?’ This dawn is right in my eyeballs and I’ve been fighting sleep all night in the right seat of this little bitty jet. The newly checked-out captain is really catching on fast to the ‘glass cockpit’ and the Flight Management System. He’s using concepts rather than rules. Line Assist can be fun, but sunrise in the eyes is the same the whole world over.

I think I’ll celebrate by rinsing out my mouth with some Vee-Eight. We’ve got a very light load; I hope the airline’s Sales and Marketing Department can drum up some more passengers, then with luck they’ll buy a few more Boeings. Hmm, I’ll better drop a note to Boeing Sales and let them know more about this operation.

Lessee, next stop we’ll have Customs and Immigration. I hope they’ll have the proper forms. The last Line Assist I was on bogged down on arrival because the official form had only shown boxes for three models of the 737. They insisted that the airplane couldn’t be a 737-800; as far as they were concerned if it wasn’t on their form it didn’t exist.

Ahh. The smell of the islands. Salt air, clear skies – not too many contrails in this part of the Pacific. This island looks like a throwback to the Fifties – motor scooters and litter and still relatively undeveloped. Well, not for long. Breakfast! Fresh fruit and what IS that stuff? Better get some ‘tho. It’s going to be a long day.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

INSTRUCTOR C

Indonesia

Boy, sometimes you get lucky. A late sleep-in and a limo pickup. The high tech Orient has some advantages I don’t get at home - a nice room on the fourteenth floor and still fairly quiet at 7.30 AM. Funny but I don’t hear the birds at this elevation but the ‘flavor’ of the Orient surely rises with the humidity. Fruit for breakfast. The Flight Surgeon would definitely approve of that and with the customer picking up the tab - what the hell!

Down to the lobby for pickup. No graffiti in these elevators. Very nice place. (Thanks Boeing Travel Department! Better take them a bottle on the way home.)
And a limo – a Mercedes? Smooothe, and the driver’s taking the scenic route; this must be the tourist road. I wonder where the poor people live? What’s this? The Training Center? The driver opens my door in the training center porte cochere and the students are there to greet their new simulator instructor.

We brief for the lesson and, Omigawd! they are letter perfect – let’s hope they understand the concepts. And that’s my job to make sure they do because there’s several different ways to work a Flight Management System and all of them are correct.

Who are these guys? The captain is just off an older, short-range Boeing with no ‘glass cockpit’ experience. The First Officer is transitioning from the Airbus A-320. Wonder why he’s going on the Boeing? Maybe he likes our airplanes. Did his A-320 have a side stick? Have to watch he doesn’t try to outsmart the captain and show him how clever he is. Crew management is a key concept that is sometimes difficult to get across to Asian crews. Ah well, as long as he can type 40 words a minute on the keypad……..

INSTRUCTOR A

Seattle

10.00 a.m. and it looks like my day is just beginning. The First Officer needs more than additional training - the captain has been ‘carrying’ him and saying nothing about it. It’s hard for me to tell when there is a language difference. We do have a Standard Operating Procedure for slow students. Let’s see. What did the boss say?

“Work ‘em, guide ‘em, but don’t baby ‘em. My family may be on their flight someday.”

First the paperwork. Gotta be objective. “The FO could not find the correct page in the Quick Reference Handbook.” Maybe he doesn’t read English as well as he can speak English. That’s unusual, it’s usually the other way round. “FO gets lost in the middle of the Hydraulic Leak or Loss procedure.” Is this language or logic? Or maybe the procedure isn’t clearly written. Y’know, the captain is being very quiet about this guy which may confirm my suspicion that the airline has some doubts and is looking for us to pass judgment. Perhaps he’s politically connected and they can’t pull out the rug?

O.K. Paperwork’s done. Now, let me get a hold of the class leader. One thing’s sure, I’ll miss my day off on Saturday. Let’s check Saturday’s schedule. Gotta time slot for an extra simulator schedule? Yep. Call the leader.

“Hello Captain. I’d like to discuss the FO’s performance today. Can I come to your hotel? Sure. See you in thirty minutes.” Oh boy. Up and down the superslab to his hotel.

INSTRUCTOR B

Kuala Lumpur

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

INSTRUCTOR C

Indonesia

These guys are sharp! Nice contrast to the last program I had. Some classes are just smoother than others. The Captain must’ve burned the midnight oil, or maybe spent time with his buddies. He’s sure got flying experience. All it takes is hangin’ new stuff on the old hooks he has in his head….. and he’s doin’ it! The FO has that great quality I see in so many Asian youth - smart, energetic, coordinated and a mind like a sponge. Guess they aren’t as coddled as many of their U.S. contemporaries.

Nice afternoon. Think I’ll take the captain up on his invitation to play a short nine at his club. Sounds exclusive and very ritzy. Such is life for the rich Asian.

Back to the hotel. Fill out the paperwork. Hmm. Looks like the Ground Training Department back home could use a little help in smoothing out the flight profile. Better redline this puppy. Then I’ve got an article to write for the Ops Review Board. Paper, paper, paper. If I was a real airline pilot, all I’d do is collect a bigger paycheck and the heck with the paperwork!

Life ain’t too bad in the tropics, sometimes!

INSTRUCTOR A

Seattle

Well, my guess was correct. The F.O. can’t hack it without extra time. I gotta be a diplomat here, but maybe I’ve got to ‘let him out gracefully’. The airline knew he was a ‘slo mo’ but wanted an outside opinion. Hmmm, I’ll have to find some extra time for him in the simulator tomorrow and see if that helps. If not, I’ll have to let him go. But, who’ll be his simulator captain? It can’t be one of their guys and his real Captain doesn’t need the time nor does he want to miss his weekend off in Seattle. Lessee, what does our Black Book say….. Nada. That’s what I get paid for – decisions that make everybody look good.

Wait a minute, we have some up-and-coming Ground School instructors that are fully qualified in real airplanes and just longing to be upgraded. That new guy is really sharp, I think he is in the Reserve. Maybe he’ll work on Saturday. Better call the ground School Supervisor and get his O.K.

Now the hard part, what am I going to tell the wife about to-morrow night?

Instructor B

At the Hotel.

Well it IS better than the Da Nang BOQ – no bugs, no drugs, less noise and the air conditioning doesn’t smell of cigar smoke. A hurried sleep at best with the 5 AM alert. Well, it’s a short ride to Operations. Breakfast? Oh yeah. Wonder what the in-flight meal will be? Not Asian, I hope. I can handle just about anything but sushi. Still, it’s a no-fat diet.

At the airport.

Lookin’ good, just like we left it and it still SMELLS new. Boy, these cabin attendants are really attentive. I believe that if they had a real kitchen, I could have a real breakfast of steak and eggs.

The captain is very much in command during the briefing. If all their pilots are like him, they’ll make it on the Ops side for sure. This sure is a funny little island. Japanese War graves and still some rusted stuff in the lagoon. No American graves ‘tho. Guess the Commission must’ve moved ‘em after The War. Lots of Japanese tourists ‘tho making offerings at the gravesites. Beautiful beaches. Pity I didn’t have time to swim and snorkel. Guess this is a pretty good Line Assist trip after all.

Not like the one I had in Europe several years ago before the EU spread its influence. The customer airline was assisting in the deportation of two foreign nationals whose travels had originated from a third country, not their homeland. On arrival back at the third country where they were being returned, the Immigration Department wouldn’t let them off the ramp and the guards on the customer airline wouldn’t let ‘em back on my airplane. Impasse!

After lots of hard stares and stiff jaws, the customer airline captain said, “Well, if they return to XXX, there is no food for them to eat and they’ll starve!” This loss of face by the locals was sufficient to satisfy any backpedaling by the officials who replied, “Well, of course they can stay.” I wonder whatever happened to those guys?

In Flight

At least the sun ain’t gonna burn my eyeballs on the way home.

Instructor C.

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz

A typical day in the life of a commercial airplane manufacturer’s IP?

Yep, they’ve got to be diplomats, psychologists, philosophers, proficient pilots and good human beings. And oh yes, have an encyclopedic memory.

"Hit One, Mister!"

2006-02-26T13:20:00.000-07:00

In the early Autumn evening, we gather in the Continental Airlines departure area at San Francisco International Airport, 10 young men who may become USAF pilots or navigators. Outside on the ramp are the four engined, propeller powered airliners I have worked on as a mechanic and hope someday to fly as a pilot. I watch the flight engineers in their airline uniforms perform the pre-flight ‘walk arounds’ checking the plane’s exterior and I envy them their knowledge and skill. In less than ten years, I shall be one of them, but the reciprocating engines will have been replaced by jet turbines.

Most of us are accompanied by family members, a few from the outer Bay Area towns are alone.

The Recruiting Sergeant takes me aside and tells me, “You’re in charge here, Critch! Be sure they all make it on to the flight.” I wonder why, but suspect it’s because I’m the oldest and am dressed a cut above the others. “Yes, sir,” I say. “Thank you, sergeant.” I feel as though I’m already a commissioned officer and fully in charge of lesser beings.

We have been instructed to bring very little to our first phase of training which is called “Pre-Flight.” What we don’t fully appreciate is that, it’s the beginning of a process which will not only teach us to fly, but will eliminate 50% of us from earning our wings and commission. It is truly as Brown, the mechanic on my United Airlines graveyard shift has said, “It’s a real tiger program!”

My bag is stuffed with what I consider essentials: ‘hip’ narrow cut ties, loafers, slacks, a dress shirt and aftershave. What I shall shortly discover, is that these items are totally unessential – the United States Air Force will provide me with everything I need to complete my training. Civilian clothing will not be permitted on Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, for the next four months.

Our flight is called and having been involved in talking to my older sister, I have forgotten to round up the other newly sworn-in recruits. The sergeant has left long ago for the nearest tavern and I count the heads as they pass through the boarding gate – only seven! I panic! Where did the other two disappear to? As I wait at the entrance, the final boarding is announced and I climb the ramp into the Continental Airlines DC-6. What if they miss the flight? Will I be held responsible? Will the Air Force sergeant report me to someone? Who?

I enter the airplane without glancing at the smiling stewardess, and frantically look for the missing men. I relax, they have boarded early and before I took up my post at the gate. I feel stupid and learn a first lesson in military manners. You may be in charge, but to be officious is an admission of insecurity and ignorance.

We arrive in San Antonio and are shepherded onto a blue Air Force bus. Not having yet learned the lesson we quickly learn in the future, to stay in the background and become inconspicuous, I push to the head of the line and announce, “All present and accounted for.” The driver looks at me with his large white eyes and says in a bored and deep southern voice, “Yes suh, I ‘spose y’all are.” We are wired and tired after such a long flight and the burning Texas mid morning sun, is right in our face as we emerge from the bus. Looking out of the window, we see our greeters in starched khaki uniforms, large blue garrison hats, gleaming shoes and white gloves. If the Recruiting poster is to be believed, these are our buddies, “the best crowd of guys you’ll ever meet.”

I’m the last off the bus. I look down to be sure I don’t miss the step and as I look up, I am eyeball-to-eyeball with a fierce looking Aviation Cadet Upperclassman.

“Hit one, mister,” he screams.

I think, “Hit what? Him?”

What he means is that I should come to a rigid position of military ‘attention’.

“Mister, you are a spastic, a poor excuse for humanity!” he screams again.

“What is going on,” I wonder.

“Are you a pilot, mister!” Again the loud voice

“Yes!”

“Yes, SIR, spastic. When you speak to me, it’s sir. Ya got that?”

“Yes sir.”

“And, spaz, you are not a pilot and by the look of you, you never will be. What’s all that crap in your side pocket?”

Crap in my side pocket? Handkerchief, RayBan case, change, a packet of M & M’s.

“Take it out,” he yells. “Put it in your back pocket. Crap in the side pocket spoils the crease in your pants.”

I comply, but it’s difficult. The pocket isn’t built to carry much more than a wallet.
Meanwhile, the rest of the recruits have been lined up in a loose marching formation and are being harassed in much the same way as I.

There is no evidence of physical abuse; it’s all shouting and provocative questions to which there is no correct answer.

“Cage those eyeballs, mister!”

“You’ll never make it, mister!”

“Mister, mister, mister.” Yes, we are cadets, not enlisted recruits, not “Airmen” and we will conform to this discipline and quickly, or be given demerits and forced to march in starched uniforms in the hot sun.

One of the Upper Classmen takes a look at my highly polished jump boots I purchased when discharged from the California Army National Guard in which I was a Private First Class, and assumes that I know something about marching.

“You, with the jump boots, get out there and be the road guard.”

“What’s a road guard?” I wonder.

I’m confused and show it. I look left, then right. The Upperclassman assumes that I’m as stunned as the rest of the guys and quickly reverses his order. I fall into line and we are marched toward a distant barracks, my back pocket bulging from the unexpected surplus of contents. One of the Upperclassmen, joins me in the formation and says, “Take that stuff and put it back in your side pockets, you look ridiculous.” I sense he is not enjoying this any more than I am, and I realize that it’s all part of a game, but a game that will continue for the next 18 months.

Night Fright

2005-07-27T20:27:00.000-07:00

After Bainbridge Air Base, which had been a 'country club' existence, Reese Air Force Base, Texas comes as a shock. We are in World War 2 style barracks, albeit three to a room with an adjacent small, common room with three metal desks and chairs. We have our own shower and toilet which when compared to the cadets' living quarters 10 years before, is luxury. But, as Under Class we are always ready for 'spot' inspections by the TAC Officers or our Upper Classmen. We keep everything in white glove condition - except on Friday nights when we are exempt and the beer is 'on' at the Cadet Club.

It is a mixed class - half the students are aviation cadets and the others are commissioned officers from either ROTC (a college commissioning program at 'land grant' universities), a U.S. military academy, or perhaps Officer Candidate School or even some who have been navigators. They live in the Bachelor Officers' Quarters (BOQ) or with their spouses in off-base in private rentals. We are all expected to attend the same classes and compete for class standing which, when it comes time to be given our assignments, will determine the order in which we chose them.

Reese is no 'country club'. It is strictly military - gate guards 24 hours a day, salutes for the incoming officers' cars which have special stickers, and inspections for the cars piled full of soon-to-graduate, sometimes inebriated, Upper Class Aviation Cadets. As Lubbock is a 'dry' Texas town with a church on almost every corner and no bars, we drive to the next county which allows us to imbibe of Texas hospitality.

As before, the flight schedule alternates between a five o'clock reville for morning flying, with afternoon academics and physical training, and a six o'clock bugle if the schedule is reversed. We have begun our last phase in September 1957 and the Texas autumn weather is excellent to begin our training in the twin engine, Mitchell medium bomber.

The B-25 'Mitchell' had been the star of the 1st bombing raid on Tokyo in 1942 led by Jimmy Doolittle from the deck of the aircraft carrier 'Hornet'. (It was also the star of the Hollywood movie, "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" which I saw as a nine year old at the Bondi Junction Regal Threatre.) Our base commander at Reese, Colonel Travis Hoover, who is nearing retirement, had been on the Doolittle raid and while we see little of him, it gives us a warrior's link with an historic moment in U.S. history. On Saturday mornings, we pass in review under the watchful eye of our training officers, the Colonel and his staff. They stand, we march to the cadet Drum and Bugle Corps.

Each instructor has four students and I have been fortunate enough to pick my instructor before we were assigned. A close friend at Bainbridge told me to 'look up' one of his friends, Bob Applebaugh, who was newly fledged and as luck would have it, I am in his flight. We bond from the beginning, and under his gentle hand, I transition into the 'Mitchell' with no problems. My barracks roommate Henry, No Middle Initial (MNI), Brown and I team together for our dual instruction and for our first day and night solo flights.

Just like most modern twins today, the B-25 has two pilot seats - one on the left designated for the captain and one on the right for the co-pilot. Why? Well, the left seat has the nose-wheel steering control and as the captain usually makes the landing, he can steer the airplane when it slows down. Besides, it's been the tradition for many years and the military is not one to break with tradition.

Solo night flying in Basic Flying School is a very controlled exercise. Think for a moment about 20 or 30 very low time pilots flying a bomber around a traffic pattern and exercising their own judgment based on a small amount of experience. Scary! We have seven or eight airplanes in layers at different altitudes with each layer vertically separated by 2,000 feet. The bottom layer lands first, and the two higher layers space themselves to avoid collisions - I had come close to a collision in Primary training and had no desire to repeat another near miss.

Henry No Middle Initial and I are in the middle layer and I am in the left seat 'playing' captain. It's my ship, I'm in command. You've seen the anti collision lights on modern aircraft - strobe lights on the tail and on the wing tips in addition to the standard red and green lights. The B-25 had no strobe lights, just the wing tips and a rotating anti-collision light under the belly. Planes follow the same rules as boats: green for the starboard (right) side and red for the port (left). Imagine 16 sets of red and green lights in the upper two layers, all flying in a clockwise direction, and four scared eyes in each cockpit hoping to avoid every other set of scared eyes.

We are both tired from physical training that afternoon and of course the usual 6 a.m. reville. Henry is looking out to the right side, I'm looking straight ahead and I think I see a bifurcating red and green light - the gap is growing wider and I assume someone's going the wrong way and heading straight for us. What I really see are two airplanes at our level but the green light on one is obscured by its wing as is the red light on the other. I immediately roll into an almost vertical bank to avoid what I believe will be a mid air collision and Henry thinks I've lost it. Before he can decide what to do I realize my error and begin to right the airplane from what has developed into a most unusual attitude.

Recovery from 'unusual attitudes' is on the flight curriculum and we have practiced several already, but we are not yet proficient in that exercise. After this night solo, I am more than proficient in determining what the lights mean.

We make it to the bottom layer, I shoot three landings, we park with the engines running and swap seats. Henry has no trouble in telling me to watch for other aircraft and I sense he's glad he's driving.

Count the Rivets

2005-07-27T14:28:00.000-07:00

This is a 'guy' story, and if you're not interested in aviation or rites of passage, give it a miss.

Bainbridge Air Base, Georgia. June 1957

I taxi into the takeoff position and hold the brakes on with my feet pressed against the brakes on the rudder pedals. Today, it's a solo flight to practice coordination maneuvers and aerobatics.

The plane in front of me has lifted off, so I slowly apply full power. The big radial engine has a comforting sound as I feel the propeller torque try to turn me to the left and I apply right rudder and keep the Trojan headed straight down the runway. The prop seems to be turning very s-l-o-w-l-y, but it’s a typical illusion of the T-28’s paddle-bladed propeller after flying the smaller T-34. The airspeed is increasing normally and I lift off at around 85 knots. “Gear Up”, and I climb straight ahead to 500 feet, raise the flaps then make a right, then a left climbing turn and I’m clear of the traffic pattern. I check the cowl flaps closed and set the power for Climb.

A beautiful spring day with big woolly clouds against a clear, blue Georgia sky. But I don’t day dream – I’ve work to do. I clear the sky to my left to see if anyone else is close and continue climbing and turning to 8,000 feet. The Georgia farmland, as indeed all of the land in the U.S., is laid out in sections with the boundaries running north, south, east and west. As I climb, I practice staying lined up with the section lines. Today, the fields are irrigated, the section lines less prominent and are replaced by the circles made by the watering systems.

Using an imaginary line across the windshield, I begin to practice steep turns. We have not been taught to fly on instruments yet, and I refer to them only to check my ability to fly while looking outside.

I talk to myself. “Throttle up a bit. More back pressure on the stick. Keep that imaginary spot on the horizon. Oops, I can feel I’m losing altitude! Add power. Raise the nose a bit. I’m skidding. Ease out some bank and use a little top rudder – keep the ball centered, keep it coordinated. Now, more bank again, back to 60 degrees. Fly the plane, don’t let it fly you!” I work at turns for about 15 minutes till I’m tired of it.

Now for some chandelles. This maneuver, that I seem to have little trouble performing, feels like flying is meant to: a rapid change in altitude, pitch angle, speed, and the sense of a rapid climb out of some dangerous situation. I imagine myself flying into a fjord or into a box canyon and finding that I must immediately reverse direction and climb back out. This is a situation that can easily happen and indeed, several later, I put this maneuver to good use when flying in Greenland.

Next snap rolls, horizontal reverses and the exhilarating Cuban Eight. I don’t know why it’s called a Cuban Eight but it is two loops joined together like an infinity sign.

I try to remember what the acrobatic section of the flight manual says as I talk myself through the maneuver:

“Mixture..Rich.
Prop Full - Forward
Airspeed - Descend to increase to 220 Knots.”

I begin to dive and enter a loop. Easing in the back pressure, I feel the g’s as I begin the loop. I arch my back to look straight up and keep the North/South section lines fore and aft. At the top of the loop, I ease back on the throttle and dive upside down at a 45 degree angle until the nose passes through the horizon. Then I half-roll till I’m ‘blue side up’ and commence another loop all the time keeping the plane properly aligned. Over top again, down at 45 degrees and roll out at my original entry altitude. Wow! Fun, fun, fun. Oops, lost a thousand feet or so – better do another, and another. I’m charged!

Before I realize it, my two hour solo is almost over and I’m going to be cutting it pretty fine to land in time so that the next student can have the plane.

I can see Bainbridge Airbase from this altitude and also can see that the line of trainers preparing to land is stretched out by five or six miles. Yikes! How will I squeeze in? Like the ‘tiger’ I’d like to be, I make a high speed descent and parallel the 45 degree entry for the south east runway. I see a gap and whip into a steep 180 degree turn and bully my way in front of another T-28 who has left a bit wider spacing than usual. What I don’t know is that the ship I have pushed in front of has a student AND an instructor.

I turn right 45 degrees on to ‘initial’ and can see I’m too close to the plane in front, so I extend my pitch-out point a bit further down the runway. What I don’t hear is the mobile control van say to me, “Solo T-28 on initial, go around.” They can see I’m extending the pattern too far, but my attention is already divided with spacing and landing. For all intents, I’m deaf to their request and I begin my 60 degree ‘pitch-out’ to the right.

“Throttle back until the horn sounds, Gear Down, Horn silent…..” I say as I turn.

Suddenly I become instantly aware of a blur ten or fifteen feet above my canopy. I can almost count the rivets in the underside of another trainer’s fuselage.

I have barely survived a near miss at less than 1,000 feet. If he’d hit me, nobody would have survived; we would both be a pile of burning metal at the end of the runway.

I continue my descending turn towards the runway, but something doesn’t feel right. I’m descending too fast. I add power, and the descent slows. I touch down much faster than usual and do not make the first turn off but taxi further down the runway causing the next T-28 to go-around.

While ‘cleaning up’ after landing, I realize why I landed long and fast. After the near miss, my train of thought was interrupted and I forget to put down ‘landing flaps’. What a ‘tiger’ I am. More like a scared pussy cat.

Entering the line shack, I decide to say nothing about the near-miss to Earl Wederbrook, my instructor. Glancing out of the window, I see an old nemesis, P.D. Bridges, my ex-instructor, the southern boy who doesn’t like slow Yankees with an Australian accent. Earl sees him coming, flicks his eyes towards the parachute loft and I beat a hasty retreat. I put it together! P.D. was the guy I cut out of the pattern and with whom I almost shared a common pile of burning rubble.

Five minutes later having checked in my parachute, I look inside the line shack. P.D. and Earl are nose to nose, except that my instructor is about six inches taller, 50 pounds heavier and who is looking down on a red faced Bridges who is obviously yelling. My protector is saying nothing, and shortly P.D. turns on his heel and leaves.

Earl has a wry smile during the debriefing and after I discuss my maneuvers, Earl says, “By the way, next time you cut someone out of the landing pattern, be sure he’s shorter than me. I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

Back in the barracks before supper, I look at my log book and realize that I have just passed 100 hours of flight time and in an airplane which 15 years ago would have been considered a high performance machine.

And I am sad knowing that neither my mother nor father will ever know their grown up son.

The Blue Lights

2005-07-19T16:56:00.000-07:00

The tower operator transmits, “Follow the blue lighted Taxiway and contact Ground Control on 123 point 7”

The engine has stopped the wooden chocks are in place and my instructor and I sit in the cockpit of the T-28 Trojan enjoying the quiet and the cool of the Georgia spring night. We are one of the last to land and taxi onto the large cement ramp filled with USAF training planes.

It’s been a successful cross-country night flight and we are both pleased with my progress. A month ago, I was closer to ‘washing out’ of pilot training than anyone else I know – 22 hours of dual instruction before I soloed in the much smaller Beech T-34 Mentor. That has got to be an Air Force record and at the time, one I was not proud of.

Earl Wederbrook is a quiet, philosophical man – the best instructor I could wish for.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he says.

He’s looking at the taxiway lights and the moon casting silver shadows on the trainers lined up on the ramp.

“I’d love to do this for the rest of my life,” I say.

“Keep it up the way you did tonight and you will,” he says.

The cockpit is dark. The exhaust pipes crackle as they cool. Our ‘nest’ still smelling of sweat and heated paint on metal, will be empty until the maintenance crew does their post flight inspection. We climb out, keeping our philosophical silence as we lug our parachutes back to the flight shack. Here cigarettes glow then dim as the instructors and their students discuss tonight’s lesson.

We stow our ‘chutes.

“Let’s debrief tomorrow,” Earl says. “Want a ride back to the barracks?”

Last weekend, Earl has taught me how to drink ‘moonshine’. After I soloed, he took me home and brought out the ‘everclear’ – southern moonshine 100 proof alcohol.

“Now, first the lemon, then the salt, then one shot, straight down.”

After four or five, I stumble out to my Ford convertible and top down, make it back to the base before curfew.

I suspect Earl would rather be flying a high performance jet, or a even MATS transport than teaching cadets how to fly. But, he never mentions his ambitions or disappointments. I know he was an Air Force pilot, has a college degree and five or six kids. His wife is a hospitable woman with her hands full of kids. What she doesn’t know is that in two years she will be a widow. While returning from a crop dusting job in the next county, Earl decides to fly under some telephone wires. He doesn’t see that one is hanging down and it wraps around the prop of his Stearman. In his mid thirties, Earl has taken his final flight and has busted his check ride.

It’s after ‘lights out’ when I enter our room. Clint is making sleep noises as I pull back my sheets and stare at the ceiling. Clint has no worries about his progress and tonight, neither do I.

Something Cool

2005-07-17T20:56:00.000-07:00

“Something cool.
I’d like to order something cool.
It’s so warm here in town,
And the heat gets me down,
Yes, I’d like something cool.”

Late Friday afternoon, mid March, 1957 and “Something Cool” sung by June Christy is playing on the jukebox in the Cadet Club at Bainbridge Air Base, Georgia.

Six weeks into primary flight training in the United States Air Force and I’ve just passed a Military Evaluation check from Captain Camp. My Southern Airways contract instructor, Mr. P. D. Bridges, had put me up for an Elimination ‘ride’ intent on limiting his student table to commissioned officers. No cadets, and in particular an Australian cadet who couldn’t understand his instructor’s southern accent.

Second flight with “PD”

“Let’s do some powah ohn stalls.”

“Some what, sir?”

“Goddammit, Mr. Key-ritch, y’all hurt me. How many times do I havetuh tel yuh.”

Something was very wrong with my flying aptitude, for after everyone else had soloed and turned their baseball caps so that the peak faced forward, here was Cadet Critch, still marching to the flightline looking like a dumbshit with his cap still on backwards. Was I really going to ‘wash out’? That was uncool and I was darned if I would give up until they threw me out of the program.

Well, the captain was no Santa Claus, but he recommended that I change instructors and be given another five hours of instruction. If I hadn’t soloed by then, my options were to be transferred to navigation training, or reduced to enlisted status and either attend a technical school, or serve out the remainder of my contract for 18 months as an Airman Third Class at some cold, remote Air Force base in ‘god knows where’.

I’m back early, the other cadets are still flying and I’ve got a quiet half hour.

“Yes bartender, I’d like something cool.”

At this hour, it means a lemonade.

The Cadet Club at Bainbridge Air Base was not quite a tar paper shack, but it had been hastily built at the beginning of the “50,000 Pilots Program” which started in the mid Fifties to provide the Air Force, some NATO and friendly South American countries with pilots to fight either the Cold War or their neighbors. The club allowed Aviation Cadets to have 3.0% beer and fraternize with the local girls, imported from the outlying colleges, or those ‘properly introduced’ to the chaplain.

Later Friday night, the club will be filled with cadets and the beer turned on. We smoke – don’t all pilots, we drink – ditto, we plot to get into the pants of the local girls – some do, most don’t, but we are cadets! We fly!

“Do I fly? Why yes little girl, why do you ask?” was the standing joke. We talked about flying in front of the girls and about girls when we should have been studying our flying. But I did study. Too hard. My roommate, Clinton Dewitt, had been a Marine for several years, already had a multi-engine commercial pilot’s license and was a flight instructor after he left the Corps and long before Bainbridge. He would tell me, “Critchey, you’re trying too hard! Relax!”

The only difference between Clint and a fireplug was that nobody pissed on him. He was stubby, didn’t smile much except in the early morning when he’d roll over in bed, fart, and say in a sweet falsetto, “Good morning Critchey. The Queen’s a whore.” Clint was a real sweetie and a good room mate.

Yes, I was ‘trying too hard’ - my nature I guess, but this afternoon a quiet drink in the club was what I needed. A quiet drink and a chance to settle down. Would I make it? My academics and military grades were very good, and should I fail to solo in the next five flying hours, I’d be sure to be recommended for navigation school which still produced wings and a commission. Navigator’s wings – a poor imitation of the pilot’s wings we all wanted

“Hey Critch, how’d you do?” Gary Hooker has arrived – another mate. We had both held cadet Lieutenant Colonel’s rank in Pre-Flight in Texas.

“O.K. I guess, but I’ll be changing instructors.”

“You’ll make it. PD’s a little shit. You like that music?”

Hooker is a lady’s man. Handsome, suave, big shit-eating grin and probably hung like a stud mule. He’s picked up with an older lady who must be in her late twenties, not particularly good looking, but READY. Man, is she ready and Hook is into it – she thinks he’s serious because he met her at the local Methodist church. Last weekend he took an unauthorized ‘open post’ with Vaughn Wells, his room mate and they split for Panama City. Vaughn tells me Hooker was romancing a babe in a trailer with her husband asleep not ten feet away. I suspect that if her old man woke up, the Hook would’ve applied some wrestling hold and put him to sleep. Oh yes, Hooker is also an expert wrestler. He grew up in an Arizona mining town, he had to be.

The weekend over, I meet my new instructor, Earl Wederbrook.

Earl’s a quiet, balding guy and, as it turns out, a college graduate with six kids. He’s a patient man and I see a glimmer of hope. Perhaps the next five hours will do it.

The Mitchell Library

2005-02-28T15:41:00.000-07:00

The Mitchell Library was built in 1906 of sandstone in the ancient Greek style with massive Ionic columns and imposing stairs leading to four bronze doors depicting 'studies in aboriginal life' and bas reliefs of the early European explorers. On the floor of the vaulted vestibule and inlaid in copper, is a reproduction of the Dutch navigator, Abel Tasman's 1640 map of Australia. Inside the library is a vast reading room paneled inoak and surrounded by three levels of book stacks. Above them, a vast stained glass ceiling filters Sydney's clear light onto the quiet readers below.

I was introduced to the Mitchell library by my mother during the early days of World War II when we lived in a room on Sir John Young Crescent in Wooloomooloo. At that time, the 'Loo was alive with Yank sailors and soldiers with well fitted uniforms, wallets full of Australian pound notes and on the lookout for any available 'sheilas'. Mother would often leave me at the library knowing I would be safe and able to entertain myself looking at magazines or illustrated books which the librarians or pages would fetch from the bowels of the library. The Mitchell became a surrogate baby sitter and a refuge from what would have otherwise been a boring wait for Mum who was nearby cleaning offices.

When I returned to Sydney and worked as the office boy in a small insurance company less than a mile from the Mitchell, I would buy a meat pie, a sandwich or a couple of sausage rolls and eat my dinner on the front steps where I could enjoy the warmth absorbed by the sandstone steps and the sunset filtering through the old buildings then standing near the historic heart of the city. The library steps were a quiet, private place overlooking the Shakespeare Memorial and the Royal Botanic Gardens. Even though there would be twenty young students studying during their dinner hour and before evening classes, I don't recall loud conversations or being interrupted in my reverie. I envied the students and wished I could have matriculated to attend Sydney University where most of my Riverview classmates were now reading Law or Pre Med.

Even though I was attending the insurance Institute and taking three classes: Introductory Law, Fire Insurance Risks and Structural Drawing, I realized that this would never be my real interest, but merely something to fill the hours after work and discuss with my boss if he chose to talk about it. I was rudderless, my life's sails not yet set and one evening I asked myself the question I have since asked many young people who have come to me for career advice, "What do you love best in the whole world?"

My reply to myself was, "Airplanes!"

So, Ya'Wanna Fly?

2004-10-05T13:15:00.000-07:00

May 1956.

3.00 AM Graveyard Shift, "Move Crew" Room, United Airlines San Francisco Maintenance Base.

"Hey Aussie, 'ave ya seen Don?"

"Naw," I say. "He's probably sleeping in the seat storage room. He was flying this afternoon."

"When's he gonna get his Commercial license?"

"Dunno, but didja y'know he's taking classes at San Mateo JayCee for his A & P."

Any conversation to stay awake. We keep one eye out for the foreman, a good bloke but a company man. John Blackwell, fresh out of the Trappist Monastery in Ogden, is out on the ramp in the morning chill saying his Rosary; Jerry Mukai's leaning back in his chair staring into blue collar airspace; Brown is reading yesterday's Chronicle he found on a DC6 coming in for overhaul. It's the ugly hour when you know the shift's half over, and you don't want to be farmed out for some grunt job with another mechanic who's behind on his job and all that's left is the shit work.

"Todd, what's Sather have to pay for his flying time?" I ask.

"I think Cessna 140 time's about $14 an hour solo," Todd replies.

"No way," says Brown, always ripe for an argument, his eyes just clearing the top of the broadsheet newspaper paper. "A guy I know only pays $12." Brown always knows a guy.

"Critch," says Todd, "when I was a mechanic in the Air Force they had a program called Aviation Cadets - they will teach you to fly. It takes about 18 months and when you're done, ya got yer wings and they make you an officer."

"No shit! Where do you sign up"

"Nah," interrupts Brown, "you'd never qualify, Todd. You've gotta have two years of college and they only take the smartest guys." Once again, Brown knows all about it.

"Bullshit, I was with a mechanic who didn't have any college and he got in! Dunno what happened to him but I know only 50% of the guys make it through. It's tough - the academics, the military chickenshit. It's a real 'Tiger' program. They keep saying they only take the top 2% and wash out half of them."

I think, "Well that let's me out. I'm no 'Tiger' and my academic career was not brilliant having left school at age 16."

"Hey, Aussie, wanna go down and find out about it?" asks Todd.

"Sure, why not. I don't have anything planned after the shift's over."

Don't have anything planned? What's to plan. I've been in the USA since Christmas last year and the horizon is void. Can I get my A & P? Perhaps. Go to college? How and where and with what? I have no money saved but perhaps if I joined the service I could get something out of it without shelling out any dough. My background as a mechanic is mostly fabricated although I'm a quick study and smart enough to stay out of trouble.

Shift over, coveralls sweaty and dead tired, we head out in Todd's car for Mission and Market Streets, and up the stairs to the Air Force Recruiting Office.

Todd takes over.

"Good morning sergeant, we'd like to sign up for Aviation Cadets."

The six striper takes a look at us and figures if he can talk us into signing up as enlisted swine, he just might make his weekly quota. "Aviation cadets, no way," he thinks.

"Well, you have to fill out the application, have a physical and take the written test. It'll take all morning, do you have the time?"

I look at Todd, his eyes like two pissholes in the snow. "Why not?"

Now, thanks to the sisters of St. Joseph I've always been good at tests. All you have to do is figure out what the test writer or the prospective employer wants and give it to him. .

The Application

Education: Hmm. Attended St Ignatius' College Riverview. Sounds good and it's true. High School: Gunnedah High with passes in, let's see: Physics, Chemistry, Math I and II, English.

Work Experience: Mechanic, Clegg and Tyrrell (well that's stretching it a bit, but they'll never check that out) QANTAS Sydney, Aero Engineer and Mechanic (got a certificate proving that) United Airlines, got a job there.

Citizenship: Got my passport - Thanks Mum, thanks Mary.

"Here y'are sergeant."

He looks and is pleasantly surprised.

The Test.

Thank God it's general knowledge, aptitude and some basic math and science.
What's this airplane? What's that capital? Sines and cosines. Pythagoras. Elementary algebra. Some nonsense about train schedules and interpretation of graphs. Fun stuff. Piece o'cake; Coulda done it in 7th grade.

An hour later, I emerge from the test room. Ex Airman 2nd Class Todd is still in there.

The sergeant takes the test and runs it through a scoring machine. He is more than pleasantly surprised, he's impressed but tries not to show it.

"Take this paper over to that office across the room and give it to the nurse. We'll give you your physical this morning."

Geez, a physical, at this hour. Don't know if I can even make water. Oh well, what the heck, it's something to do. Nice nurse, bit old for me 'tho. Fill out the medical form. Childhood sickness? I'm not totally truthful, but then I'm not sure what I've had. Good thing I don't know what caused my brother's or parents' or deaths. Venereal Disease? No, never. Christ, can't tell the truth here but I'm almost a virgin. Physical restrictions? Nope. Strip off down to my shorts, see the doctor, turn, cough, get a 'finger wave up the rear. Touch the toes, look left, look right, can you see my fingers? How many? Say aaah!

Back to the Recruiting Sergeant. Still no sign of Todd.

"Am I in?" I tactfully ask.

"Well, no. This is just the beginning. You'll have to have another more extensive physical, and a two day exam north of here at Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento. You'll get a letter setting it up."

I head out and find Todd in the waiting area sitting in the cheap leatherette seats.

"How'd you make out?" I ask.

"Didn't pass the test. Aww. I really didn't want back in the Air Force"

"Wanna beer?"

Todd's 3 AM "Hey, Aussie, wanna go down and find out about it?" changed my life's direction more than any other planned decision. That's life.

How To Get That Job In Aviation - 1954

2004-07-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning at the Insurance Company of North America, Australian Home Office, Spring Street, Sydney.

"Strewth, what a day. If I wasn't working I could'a done my grocery shopping at King's Cross before the rush, now it'll be off the tram, into the deli before it closes at two, back on the tram and hope there's something goin' on tonight in Bondi. Hope I've got time to hit the Pitt Street Rhineskeller Wine Shop for a jug."

Just the three of us: Crazy Kath Sherlock in her gray Red Cross uniform, sucking Cure 'Em Quicks, and that new honey, Judy Stutchbury who won't even give me the time o'day. Y'know, the other day I asked her to type some stuff and she said that it wasn't her job? Who the heck does she think she is? I've been here longer than she has, and besides, isn't that what the girls are supposed to do?

Who's this at the door?

"Yes, madam, you want to renew your Household policy? Do you have the renewal slip?"

"No? Not a bother at all. Now what is that address again?"

Go to the ledger, find the address, find the policy number, go to the pending folder. Let's see, City Account? She must be one of our agents' shirt-tail rellies getting the 15% discount.

Good, she's done and gone.

B-O-R-I-N-G

God, 2 hours till I get off at 1 o'clock. I'll read the Herald want ads.

QANTAS
Needs Mechanics' HelpersPositions at Mascot AerodromeGood working conditions.Interviewing today at Wentworth House 10.00 am until 4.00 PM

Hmm. Wonder what Mechanic's Helpers do?

If I was in aviation, maybe Polly would let me take her out to the flicks instead of up the hill to St Patrick's to Confession where I know she confesses fooling with her court reporter boyfriend. She only takes me along as 'cover'.

(Wentworth House is no longer standing, but it was just across the street from Polly's weekly confessional and it was the headquarters of QANTAS Empire Airways, Australia's locally grown, aerial connection with the outside world. Probably because of Australia's dedication to the British Empire and her assistance to General Douglas McArthur's drive to defeat the Yellow Peril, Australia had been granted a round-the-world route. QANTAS had been flying the U.S. built Lockheed Super Constellation: Sydney, Darwin, Singapore, Delhi, Cairo, and the long leg to London. Then, London to New York, nonstop to San Francisco, Honolulu, Nandi and Sydney.)

I look for the Employment Office but instead find a sign, 'Interviews' and nearby a varnished, glass enclosed office with an old coot reading the Saturday Daily Telegraph with his feet propped up on a empty desk.

This is aviation?

"Sir, is this where you're hiring mechanics helpers?"

Bill Grove, Maintenance Foreman of Hangar 85 at Mascot, takes a look at me in my blue, double-breasted, tailor-made suit, white shirt and Windsor knotted club tie and wonders what the hell I'm doing there, but it's a slow, late, spring afternoon and there are no other applicants lined up.
"Yairs, son. Come on in."

Bill is a balding, stocky, middle-aged man dressed in a nondescript plaid suit which is not near the cut of mine. He too is having a boring day, seconded by the Personnel Department to do interviews as Saturday is their day off and managers don't get overtime.

We talk father to son stuff. His son is attending Scotts College, a GPS school at the west end of Rose Bay, where I am, at great expense, currently subletting and sharing a house.

"Why would you want to be a mechanic's helper?" asks Bill.

My enthusiasm has always been a door opener and it flows out to open this unexpected portal.

"Well sir, I've always wanted to get into aviation, in fact, it's really my first love."

This was not totally untrue as I had been the class 'drawrer' since 1st grade and could draw the best aeroplanes and rocket ships ever to adorn the covers of my mates' exercise books. I regularly buy and devour a weekly periodical from England, "The Aeroplane", and if I can afford "Flight", I buy it too. The smell of airplanes in a hangar is totally intoxicating. I dream of layovers on Pacific islands exploring abandoned Japanese Army fortifications and tunnels finding souvenirs of the war I have only read about. I also dream about 'hosties' like Pauline and how they get all gooey when talking about pilots.

"Well, you look as though you could do the job, but frankly it's a greasy, sweaty job cleaning parts that have been taken off our Connies and I don't think it would interest you for more than a week or two. But, I tell you what, if you can afford a tool box and a pair of overalls, I'll take you under my wing and see that you stay out of trouble. I need someone to work just outside my office door to take care of the Maintenance Manuals and tag the airplane parts that the mechanics have removed for repairs. When I can find them, the apprentices aren't interested and do a lousy job and the mechanics hate paperwork."

I don't have a clue as to what 'take me under his wing' means but he seems to be a straight bloke and just may have my interests at heart. Perhaps it's the Riverview/Scotts College connection - both are members of the elite Great Public Schools of New South Wales and I am after all, a Riverview bloke. Well, kind of.

I lie about my age and he doesn't seem to care. The better wages start at age 21, so for QANTAS purposes, I'm 21.

"You may have to live closer to Mascot. Do you have a bike, or a car?"

He knew I do have a tool box, but a car? A motor bike? Last time I saw my push bike, it was a year ago and it was leaning against the wall of the Public Bar of the Commercial Hotel in Gunnedah. Who knows which drunk had ridden it home.

"Ah, no I don't, but I can get one!"

"Righto then, you can start in a coupla weeks. I'll set it up. Keep your mouth shut, or tell anyone who asks that you worked in Clegg and Tyrell's Gunnedah Garage instead of working in the Parts Department. When you start, I'll check your tool box over so's no-one will question it. By the way, you'll have to join the Union and you might consider taking the evening classes at Ultimo Technical College."

I leave Wentworth House flying just a little higher than those Connies I hope see in two weeks.

Little did I know that this would be the beginning of a career in aviation which lasted over 40 years.