16 Vol. 10 / No. 2 / February 2018 Global Aviator
Pic by Tim Rees
This second story tells
about my life as a Royal
class steward with KLM
Royal Dutch Airlines,
50 years ago.In the sixties the airline world
was unrecognisable compared to
today. With the exception of New
York which was flown twice a day,
all intercontinental flights were flown
once a week. KLM used the DC8-63,
the largest aircraft of its time. It could
carry 219 passengers of which 8 in the
Royal class. The maximum range was
3900 NM. Therefore some of those
destinations required stationing a
crew en-route for a couple of months.
You could request to be stationed in
Brazzaville, Rio de Janeiro or Tokyo. I
have been at each of those stations for 3
months and it was quite an experience.
To fly from Amsterdam to
Johannesburg the aircraft needed
refuelling in Brazzaville. In those
days this was an undeveloped
town. The Russian government
had built the airport according to
their standards and also supplied
all the necessary support vehicles,
including three large snowploughs.
Go figure, smack on the equator!
The crew stationed in Brazzaville
took over the weekly flight
from Amsterdam to continue to
Johannesburg, which took a little over
4 hours, and returned to Brazzaville
after 8 hours. Then I had no idea
that South Africa would become the
country I would live in decades later.
There was not much to do, besides
braais and looking at the trees. Now
and then we took a ‘cruise’ on theCongo River. Sometimes large chunks
of land broke off from the shore of this
massive river and became floating
islands, complete with trees, some
small huts and even people. Surreal.
We also sometimes visited Kinshasa
on the other side of the river.
Romances were obviously
happening, but overall this was a place
where 3 months were really enough.
A much more attractive stationing
was Rio de Janeiro. Our hotel was on the
Copacabana beach. This was definitively
the place to be for a 21 years old Dutch
guy. Once a week we had to work, flying
from Rio to Buenos Aires and back. The
trip was 3.30 hrs. one way, turnaround
time of 6 hours, so all in all one day
work and 6 days off. There was so much
to do in the city; one could have stayed
easily another year. There were hardly
any tourist, because who could afford
to fly to Rio in the 60’s. The beach was- especially on the weekends - full with
Brazilian ladies, sunbathing in their
minuscule bikinis and frolicking in the
surf. Our pale Dutch skin was a sharp
contrast but also the envy for some.
The street life was vibrant, the
people joyful and high spirited. Such a
contrast to the scene in The Netherlands.
There was simply no way one could
spent the $ 15.00, our daily allowance
for enjoying ourselves and sightseeing.
Every week we took the crew
who arrived from Amsterdam out for
dinner to our favourite place, high up
in the cooler mountains, overlooking
Rio. They were obviously reluctant
to leave after their 2 days stay.
This was a place we felt sad to
leave after three months, especially
when the winter had arrived in the
Netherlands in full strength.
The third place I was stationed was
Tokyo, in the winter. I was looking
forward to it!
When we flew from Amsterdam
to Anchorage, on our way to Tokyo, I
noticed that the First Officer used a
sextant to shooting stars through a
specially installed glass dome in the
cockpit roof. Always when I tell this to
people they laugh and think I’m making
it up, but it’s true. The navigation
equipment in the 60’s was such that a
back-up was needed. The results were
written down and used to calculate our
exact position. I tried – for fun – to get
any results, but according to my
readings we were somewhere in the
middle of the Atacama Desert in Chile.
When we arrived in Tokyo it was
already dark. The next morning when I
opened the curtains of my hotel room,
the first thing I saw ... was The Eiffel
Tower! I was completely flabbergasted
because I knew this tower is in Paris.
Initially I thought it must have been the
after landing drinks which somehowBy: Peter Kerckhoffs - Part 2A KLM
steward
half a
century
agoMemories relived
DC-8, largest airlines in the 60's