You never see the contents of the cockpit of the plane? Sure that often you see two crew cockpit. Well, this cockpit is designed by Wiweko Soepono, President Director of Garuda Indonesian Airways birth of Blitar, January 18, 1923.
Fritz called the cockpit, became the forerunner of all the cockpit crew of two pilots and jumbo wide-body aircraft, even now on the world's largest jetliner - Airbus A380 superjumbo. Airbus then gave an honorary degree at Wiweko as "Mr. Two-man Crew Cockpit Forward facing."
To be different and pioneering something new, when the Europeans wanted to develop a wide-bodied Airbus aircraft in 1967, Roger Beteille, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Airbus Industrie, has cast the notion of an Airbus cockpit crew of two people. The idea is to take the basic two-crew aircraft made by France, the Caravelle, but the market was only willing to absorb the wide-body aircraft Boeing, Douglas and Lockheed are still equipped with side-cockpit for the flight engineer panel.
While Wiweko in the other hemisphere has taken a bold step towards a two-man cockpit crew for large capacity aircraft. He shrunk the number of four-engined aircraft cockpit crew Douglas DC-8 from five to three. The reason, flight radio operator and navigator on the plane is not needed anymore, because it was handled bomber.
Taking the experience of DC-8, and the experience of flying solo across the Pacific Ocean with a Beechcraft Super H-18 from the United States to Jakarta, Wiweko concluded that the A300 cockpit is manned by two people. "Remove the seat (flight engineer), and let us negotiate the purchase of aircraft," he told Roger Beteille.
Immediately Beteille surprised, he had found someone with a vision far ahead of the same. And that person is Wiweko Soepono, from developing countries but forward thinking and vision in applying cutting-edge aviation technology.
In the manufacturing process, Wiweko Soepono actively participated in designing the two-man cockpit crew of this Airbus. Also when he was with designing and preparing Beechcraft Beechcraft Super H-18 to fly solo across the Pacific. For 60 hours of flying alone across the Pacific Wiweko, while refueling in Honolulu, Wake Island, Guam and Manila. Extraordinary achievement for an aviator.
Wiweko was the first Asian person to fly alone across the Pacific with a light transport aircraft - as a comparison, the U.S. mainland to Hawaii distance farther than the distance of New York to Paris as far as 5806.8 km taken by famous aviator Charles Lindbergh on 20-21 May 1927 . Indonesia Today
