IN 1945 the nation got its first plane when American President Franklin D. Roosevelt gifted an airplane to King Abdul Aziz. The airplane was a DC-3 (Dakota) HZ-AAX. The twin-engine plane was followed months later by two more DC-3s. Those heady days were recollected by Abdulmajeed Bakur, who was one of the pilots who flew that Dakota, which is now one of Jeddah’s monuments in Al-Faisaliah District.

Bakur said he was one of the third generations who was lucky to pilot that plane. He had to complete a required number of flying hours first to get the commercial and instrument certificates. A representative from the Federal Aviation Agency instructed them and then, as was the case with Bakur, all the aspiring pilots sat for exams at the American Embassy in Beirut.

Later on, to get the captain’s license, he sat for the Airline Transport Regional (ATR) certificate or, as it is known now, the Airline Transport Pilot (ATP). After getting the licenses and trainings on the Champion, Cessna and Apache airplanes, he said, it was a huge shift to actually fly the Dakota.

“My friends and I found it overwhelming to be the ones to fly the first plane to the Kingdom. We were glad to go in there and were actually excited when we sat on that high seats and get a feel of the real thing after spending a lot of time on the low training seats. It was as a dream come true to fly for the first time at a height of 10,000 feet and taking care of 27 passengers,” he explained.

“It was not just about wearing the khaki uniform and flying the airplane,” he said, “we had to make sure everything was safe for our passengers. During stopovers, the pilot himself had to check the refueling and also measure the levels with the dipstick before securing the tank cover under his supervision. It’s funny, when one thinks about it now, that we took responsibilities of all the bits and pieces without realizing it.”

“We would also make sure the passengers arrived in good condition. This was largely due to the novelty of flying and also the fact that the planes did not have any major buffers against air turbulences. Also many people feel dizzy when landing. Though this old plane was not as modern and strong as the new ones, it used to land on enhanced runways and non-enhanced ones too,” Bakur said.

In the beginning, the Dakota, Bakur continued, needed to make many stops as the plane’s capacity to carry fuel was limited. So a flight plan had to be drawn with this in mind and also the choice of destinations of passengers. They did not need many flight attendants. Only one male flight attendant was used during the flights. He used to offer lunch boxes to the passengers as well as the crew.

“There used to be a radio operator too,” added Bakur, and communication during those days was through the Morse code. Sometimes messages regarding the weather that it was unsuitable for landing was received late, and the pilots were faced with situations where they were forced to change their landing destination to another city in a spur of a moment,” he said.

For Bakur and his friends the Dakota was their second home. They felt safe in it and even if the trip from Jeddah to Riyadh used to take 3 hours 45 minutes — unlike now when it does not exceed 1 hour 15 minutes approximately — they still enjoyed it.

— Published in Arab News Saudi National Supplement (Sept. 23, 2005).