Worst Place to be a Pilot

[flybytes 34]

Wonder if anyone watched the UK tv channel 4 programme 'Worst Place to be a Pilot' last night.

 

Being on Ch4 I was not expecting much from yet another of their 'fly on the wall' documentaries, but I set my box of tricks to record it, and, waking up earlier than usual this morning I was able to skip the numerous ad's & watch the whole programme in about 40-minutes before breakfast.

 

Surprised, a 'fly on the wall' experience that was certainly not boring.

 

Set at the Indonesian airline Susi Air where the remote local tribes build there own extremely short & narrow grass/mud strips, pilots not only have to contend with these, but bad weather, dogs or motorcyclists taking shortcuts as the a/c are landing or taking off & airport controllers (where they have them) struggling with English.

 

Many of these older natives had been cannibals. One of the pilots foolishly asked one of these "which tastes best, native or white meat?" Given the answer "white", the pilot, who I'm sure looked even whiter in the face than normal, turned to the cameraman, telling him that this would be a very quick turnaround!

 

Part 2 is next week & pt.3 the week after.

 

Ray.

 

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

I'd have thought the worst place to be a pilot was as an employee of Malaysian Airlines!

[flybytes 34]

Alan,

 

Touche'

 

Ray.

 

[needles 1,010]

What a thrilling prog'. This is certainly flying by the seat of your pants stuff.

Can't wait for the next episode.

[britfrog 180]

the worst place to be a pilot is unquestionably to be a white caucasian working for an arab airline. as an infidel (you are considered equal to a spider that has crawled out from under a rock) you cannot even question a baggage handler , and if he says you have done something wrong you have to eat humble pie and be subserviant to him, even if he is wrong. My best friend from my youth went to work for saudia, and lived in saudia city the stories he can tell would make you hair stand on end.

Cannibals???? piece of cake!!!

[goosenka 9]

Yes crazy stuff that wad. Great show.

[flybytes 34]

the worst place to be a pilot is unquestionably to be a white caucasian working for an arab airline. as an infidel (you are considered equal to a spider that has crawled out from under a rock) you cannot even question a baggage handler , and if he says you have done something wrong you have to eat humble pie and be subserviant to him, even if he is wrong. My best friend from my youth went to work for saudia, and lived in saudia city the stories he can tell would make you hair stand on end.

Cannibals???? piece of cake!!!

 

Having worked in Saudia Arabia, have to somewhat agree with you, but if your description of how the Saudia authorities and people view us westen men, think about how they viewed our western women who worked out there.

 

Fortunately never happened to me, despite the awful driving habits of the locals, but if a foreigner should be involved in a driving accident, the foreigner was automatically guilty of causing the accident, as, by Saudia logic, the accident would not have happened if they were not in the Country.

 

Do have to say that walking around the Saudia city I was in at night felt safer than the many US & UK cities I was involved with at the time (late 1980's-early 1990's), but from what I gather that now all that has changed.

 

Ray.