Beyond Lion Rock: the Story of Cathay Pacific Airways
“Captain Ron Jackson-Smith sat on his right-hand with the young Flight Engineer, Ken Hickey, just behind him facing the flashing lights of his switchboard. It was a fine November morning and Steven taxied Convair VR-HFX away from Kai Tak’s Terminal Building in the warm sunlight of Guy Fawkes’ Day.
The flight was a full one: 116 passengers to Saigon, Bangkok and Calcutta, a good number of them South Korean engineers and merchant navy seamen and Vietnamese civilians. It was also a ‘check’, or moni...toring, flight. That meant that the normal complement of two pilots, Steven and Jackson-Smith in this case, was increased by one, a Check Captain, Bob Howell, there to assess the performance of the other two – of the First Officer’s suitability for promotion to Captain, and the Captain’s suitability for appointment as Training Captain on the line. In these perfectly normal circumstances Steven was in control of the aircraft, Jackson-Smith occupied the co-pilot’s seat, while Bob Howell breathed down both their necks from the ‘jump seat’, the spare seat behind the pilot.MoreLess
The flight was a full one: 116 passengers to Saigon, Bangkok and Calcutta, a good number of them South Korean engineers and merchant navy seamen and Vietnamese civilians. It was also a ‘check’, or moni...toring, flight. That meant that the normal complement of two pilots, Steven and Jackson-Smith in this case, was increased by one, a Check Captain, Bob Howell, there to assess the performance of the other two – of the First Officer’s suitability for promotion to Captain, and the Captain’s suitability for appointment as Training Captain on the line. In these perfectly normal circumstances Steven was in control of the aircraft, Jackson-Smith occupied the co-pilot’s seat, while Bob Howell breathed down both their necks from the ‘jump seat’, the spare seat behind the pilot.MoreLess
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