When I was first became a Second Officer-Flight Engineer, the third man in the cockpit, it was on the DC-10 based in Honolulu. We flew the international turns from Hawaii to Guam, Saipan and Narita (the new Tokyo International Airport), and back. The ground time was usually about an hour or so, just enough time to get an ice cream and a walk around the terminal.
This one month I was flying with Lee Edmonds, a quiet, unassuming Captain. The Co-pilot was Roy Steele, a face that only a mother could love, and a more successful swordsman then Warren Beatty is reputed to be….go figure. We land in Tokyo, and are parked at the gate.
Japan has a very popular TV show that airs live. A female journalist, Japan’s Connie Chung, takes a camera crew to different places of business, restaurants, fishing boats and such. She interviews ordinary people about their jobs. The Japanese love it.
Our Tokyo Station Manager advises us that this Celeb is here now, and she wants to interview us in the cockpit of our DC-10. Captain Edmonds is taken aback. Although he gives his permission, he’s shy, stilted, not knowing what to do or say.
The cockpit is now stuffed with the Station Manager, a camera man, “Connie Chung,” the lights, and our crew — quite a crowd. I am Cinderella, sitting at my engineer’s table in the corner, out of the limelight.
I pull on the sleeve of the interviewer, as she chatters away in Japanese, “Excuse me….excuse me, do you know what I do, what this table is for?”
Suddenly, the camera and lights are focused on me, the Station Manager rapidly translates my English into Japanese for the interviewer. She wants to know what you do?” Now I am the focus of the interview.
“Have you noticed that pilots always look neat, with freshly pressed shirts and jackets? Japanese translation. “Well, this is our steam and press table, and it is my job to steam and press the pilot’s shirts and jackets during each flight,” More translation. “That way, everyone looks neat once we are on the ground.”
The Station Manager is rapidly translating my statements for the TV Star, she is quickly repeating it all into the camera and microphone for her live audience.
We are a success. They are all very impressed, all very happy with the interview, and they make their bowing goodbyes.
So far as I know, all of Japan, or at least all of Tokyo, is now convinced that the Flight Engineer’s table is a steam press, and that the Flight Engineer is in charge of laundry, to make the rest of the crew look presentable.
As an aside about Japan: prejudice and pride were definitely part of my make-up as a young DC-10 Flight Engineer. J.A.L. (Japan Airlines) was our ground handler in Narita and Nagoya. That is, they took care of our fueling, passenger, gates and maintenance needs in Japan. I used to bristle with annoyance whenever a Japanese maintenance guy would come flying into the cockpit and reach for a switch on my panel. “Don’t touch anything!” I would insist, knowing that nobody knew anything about these aircraft but me, especially not some Japanese guy in overalls, with limited English communications skills. After all, I had weeks of training as a Flight Engineer…who could know these aircraft as I did?
It didn’t take long to discover how thoroughly well trained, and how professional Japanese Maintenance men are (as are all the other Japanese in every department within aviation), and how much more they knew about these planes then I did. Further, their integrity would never permit them to pencil-whip a problem they couldn’t solve or fix… a habit all to common on the U.S. Domestic side of the industry.