People / The collaborator
Jock Bethune
The American Airlines media production specialist whose department made the slides for Jay Ricks' 747 ground school, and who told that story on camera.
Jock Bethune started at American Airlines in Fort Worth on September 16, 1968. He arrived as a kid out of New York with a degree in broadcast radio and television from Ithaca College. American hired him because it planned a TV studio for its new Flight Academy.
His department, seven or eight people at the time, made training videos and 35mm slide programs for American’s crews. For the 747, Jock’s team produced the slides for the ground school that Jay R. Ricks was in charge of. In one month on that program, he says, they turned out 24,000 slides, many of them duplicates.
Jock is the film’s witness to Jay’s work. “He was in charge of that development,” he tells Caleb. “He was well-liked and well-respected.”
His voice shakes when he talks about the job. “I am proud,” he says. “I’ve spent my career with American Airlines. They call me Mister American Airlines.” Through that career he came to know Robyn: “Because of my time there I have met people like your mom.”
In the narration, Caleb turns to Jock for the record of how American trained its first 747 crews.