You are lucky Frenchy.
Used to work for a cargo airline in despatch and maintenance. Best damm job I ever had. Always something interesting happening. I got to taxy an L188 Electra. Those props were as you Amurricans might say 'awesome'. I had to run of all the jets and turboprops on the ramp. I sat all alone in the cockpit of the last flying Vickers Merchantman (Vanguard) just before it was retired to a museum. The flight deck was so big you walk around the seats. It was like a ship's bridge. The 727's were just as interesting with proper steam age panels. We even had a couple of C130's.
I remember helping speed tape up some false work panels on a 727 wing as anxious looking grooms, loaded horses. The smell of race horse making it's way onto the flight deck when airborne. The grooms throwing the stuff at me. But there was a different smell when the Mexican crews were flying. Cologne and aftershave used to waft out of the flight deck when you opened the door. The mix of nationalities was amazing.
Then there were the dramas, the suspicious wife calling us in ops trying to get the number of his apartment in Paris when he was in Hamburg. Others ringing to check that he really was due back tomorrow. The girl in the office who used to join the married Electra Captain on his stopovers. The ex forces guys with war stories to tell. War stories of a different kind from guys staying over in Budapest and Hamburg.
The night one our 727's smashed Gerard Depardieu's Falcon jet on the taxyway in Hamburg. Smoke in the cockpit, wheels falling off, never to be seen again. The poor old Electras, alway breaking down always flying on three engines.
Boozy nights out with senior Captains and the chief pilot. Always buy the chief pilot a drink for career reasons.
Then there was N the really cute air hostess turned pilot...........aaah:cool:
There is definitely a novel in there somewhere.
I had hoped to get in as an Electra one striper. Non rated pilots started on the Lockheeds. Imagine your first job flying a four engine turboprop. Then you moved up to the 727's. But alas, there was a 'restructuring' and I found myself landside and on the dole so fast that when I met the Chief pilot in the city a few days later, he didn't know. He thought I was sent to collect him in the crew bus:cry
I'd fly for them anytime, even though they screwed me in the end.
