Wiweko Soepono

Wiweko Soepono (January 18, 1923 - September 8, 2000) was an Indonesian aviator who served as the CEO of Garuda Indonesia, the flag carrier airlines of Indonesia from 1968 to 1984.

An avid Aviator, Wiweko was well known for his role in shaping Indonesia Aviation Industry, from his early career as an Air Force Officers until his role as Garuda Indonesia CEO. Wiweko was well known as an pioneer in the Indonesian aviation Industry along with R.J. Salatun and Nurtanio Pringgoadisuryo, as well as Yum Soemarsono who was a pioneer for Indonesian Helicopter industry and a pioneer for Indonesian disabled pilots training program.

One of his notable role in shaping the aviation industry was his idea to modified the early three-man crew cockpit of Airbus A300 into a two-man crew cockpit which no longer require flight engineer as its cockpit crew. Airbus Co-founder Roger Béteille once regarded Wiweko as one of the greatest visionary of Aviation Industry that has the vision of one step ahead towards the future modern technology.

Early life
Wiweko was born on January 18, 1923, in Blitar, East Java during the periode of Dutch colonization of Indonesia. The province of East Java, where the birthplace of Wiweko, Blitar, located was also the province of Dutch Aviation Pioneer and founder of Fokker Aircraft, Anthony Fokker, birthplace located, Kediri. Since his early youth Wiweko has developed interest in Science and Technology, one of his hobby during his youth was to read a Dutch version of Science and Technology magazine and aircraft aeromodelling. Wiweko later-on was also played major role in Indonesian Aeromodelling and was also regarded as the pioneer of Indonesian Aeromodelling.

Military career
During the Indonesian war for Independence, Wiweko was part of the team that was tasked by President Sukarno for a procurement program to buy a Douglas DC-3 Aircraft for the airlift purpose in-order to support Indonesian War for Independence. The team manage to secure fund from people of Aceh and later-on the fund was used to bought a DC-3 Aircraft that was later renamed as "Seulawah" taken from the name of a mountain in Aceh, in honor of Aceh people who already gave much of the fund to buy the aircraft. The Aircraft was later given a registration code of RI-001.

Following the Indonesian war for Independence, Wiweko served within the newly formed Indonesian Air Force. During his tenure in the Indonesian Air Force, Wiweko oversaw the procurement of several fleet of Helicopter for Indonesian Air Force, such as the Hiller OH-23 Raven Helicopter, where he managed to gain the qualification to fly the Hiller OH-23 Raven Helicopter.

Private Sector Career
Following his retirement from the Air Force, Wiweko work on several private sector industry, such as flying a crop-dusting aircraft for agricultural purpose. In 1960's Wiweko was recruited by Bank of Indonesia and was in-charge of light aircraft procurement for banking purpose such as distributing logistic and bank note to several commute area.

Trans-Pacific Solo Flight
During his tenure at Bank of Indonesia, while given the task to oversaw the twin-engine propeller Beechcraft Super H-18 Aircraft that was ordered by the Bank, Wiweko somehow volunteer to flew the Aircraft by himself from Beechcraft manufacturing installation in Wichita, Kansas to Jakarta, Indonesia in an alone solo flight on December 18, 1965. Wiweko also request the aircraft to be modified with several equipment which allowed the aircraft to be operated by single pilot.

Wiweko flew the Beechcraft Super H-18 aircraft himself alone in a two days plus 12 hours solo-flight from Wichita, Kansas to Jakarta, Indonesia with several stop for refuel in Honolulu, Guam, Wake Island and Manila and becoming the first Indonesian to fly solo crossing the Pacific Ocean.

Wiweko's career in Bank Indonesia lasted until 1968, when he was appointed by Indonesian President Soeharto to lead Indonesia's flag-carrier Airline, Garuda Indonesia as its CEO. This occurred while Wiweko was flying a Bank Indonesia Beechcraft Super H-18 Aircraft en route from Denpasar to Jakarta and when entering Surabaya airspace he suddenly received an urgent message through his communication radio that telling him that he was summon by the President the next day for an important task.

Garuda Indonesia
In 1968 Indonesia dictator Soeharto appointed Wiweko Soepono to serve as the CEO of Garuda Indonesia. Wiweko become CEO of Garuda Indonesia in 1968 and was leading the company during the era where Aviation industry was at its down peak, due to several crisis that has a significant impact towards aviation industry such as the oil crisis and rising of oil price. The economic crisis in Indonesia that occurred in 1960's during the last few years of Sukarno's presidency also brought significant impact on Garuda Indonesia. This was the primary reason why President Soeharto appointed Wiweko as Garuda Indonesia CEO due to the President's acknowledgement of Wiweko major contribution in Indonesia Aviation industry.

During his tenure as Garuda Indonesia CEO, Wiweko oversaw several of revitalization of the company which include the restructring of the company and its aircraft fleet which emphasize on modernizing from propeller type engine aircraft to a modern technology jet-engine type aircraft. One of Wiweko's first step to modernize the fleet is to repurchase again the fleet of McDonnell-Douglas DC-8 Aircraft which previously was a cooperation with KLM.

As time goes by and more advance and sophisticated aircraft are occurred by the end of 1960's, Wiweko managed to secure the delivery of several more new sophisticated and advance wide-body jet aircraft to Garuda Indonesia's Aircraft Fleet, including the jumbo-jet Boeing 747-200 and a McDonnell-Douglas DC-10-30 and Airbus A300 in early 1970's.

This led to Garuda modernization aircraft fleet that allowed the Airline to expand its International route network and gained more time slot for its domestic flight schedule which allowed to flew more passenger on the domestic flight schedule by include several of narrow-body jet-engine aircraft such as Fokker F-28 and McDonnell-Douglas DC-9. By the time Wiweko retired from his position as Garuda Indonesia's CEO in November 1984, Garuda has had 79 fleet of aircraft in total, which include a four Jumbo-Jet Boeing 747-200, six McDonnell-Douglas DC-10, Nine Airbus A300-B4-FFCC, 24 McDonnell-Douglas DC-9 and 36 Fokker F-28 and at that time Garuda was the largest Fokker F-28 operator in the world. As a result, under Wiweko's leadership as Garuda Indonesia CEO, Garuda Indonesia become the second largest airline in Asia, with Japan Airlines as the largest airline in Asia at that time.

With the expansion of Garuda Indonesia progress going on, Wiweko also emphasized the need to invest more on human resources such as recruiting of almost 500 new pilots for Garuda Indonesia. Most of these are sent to study at flying school abroad. The expansion not only focused on its pilots, but also on the expansion for technical staff, ticketing selling staff and also administration staff.

During Wiweko's leadership, Garuda Indonesia's livery was also being re-branded from the one with the Garuda's bird logo which first appeared in 1949 with the new one that has the "Garuda" red-color letter written at its rudder tail and "Indonesian Airways" along with Indonesian flag in the fuselage. The livery lasted until 1985 and was re-branded again with the new livery that has the green color Garuda bird logo on its rudder tail with "Garuda Indonesia" letter written at its fuselage.

Several major event also occurred during Wiweko's tenure as Garuda Indonesia's CEO such as during the crisis in East Timor that occurred at the end 1975. At that time Garuda Indonesia participated in what was known as the "Airlift Mission" from Indonesia through East Timor which flying Indonesian troops and its supply from Indonesia to East Timor. Most of them are flown by Garuda Indonesia's Fokker F-27 and Fokker F-28 aircraft from Madiun, East Java through Denpasar and through Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara before being deployed to East Timor. Another major event that occurred during Wiweko's tenure as Garuda Indonesia's CEO was the hijacking of Garuda Indonesia's Douglas DC-9 Aircraft "Woyla" by radical jihadist terrorist group on March 28, 1981, which ended by the raid by Indonesian special forces military commando to take-over the plane and rescue its passenger.

Wiweko also initiate the creation of a new aircraft maintenance facility which purpose to specialize in Aircraft maintenance service. Later-on the aircraft maintenance facility that wiweko initiated was known as Garuda Maintenance Facility which was located in the newly build Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.

As an avid Aviator, Wiweko who was also a qualified commercial pilot aircraft for several commercial aircraft such as Fokker F-28 and Airbus A300, also often flew the Aircraft that was on a schedule flight while serving as Garuda's CEO, in-order to stay pilot-qualified. Wiweko who's not revealing his identity as the Airline CEO and only act as the Flight Captain, sometimes causing most of the flight passenger unnoticed that it was the Airline CEO himself that flew the Aircraft.

Airbus A300 Forward Facing Crew Cockpit
In 1977 while overawing the delivery of Garuda Indonesia Airbus A300, Wiweko who was given the chance to flew the Airbus A300 on a test-flight finds-out that the Aircraft has been equipped with most of modern-day technology that enable the aircraft to be operated easily, but still design with three-man cockpit crew that require a flight engineer on the cockpit. He then suggested to Roger Béteille who was Airbus co-founder and who also in-charge of Airbus A300 project to design the newly "two-man crew" cockpit that doesn't require Flight Engineer anymore and modified it with more sophisticated technological equipment which allowed the plane to be flight only by two-man cockpit crew and no longer need flight-engineer as its cockpit crew.

The idea was approved and Airbus later-on modified the cockpit of Airbus A300 that would be delivered to Garuda Indonesia only operated by two-man cockpit crew and removed its flight engineer from the cockpit. The concept was later-on known as "Forward Facing Crew Cockpit" and was believed to be the world's first wide-body aircraft to be crewed only by two-men cockpit crew. The Forward Facing Crew Cockpit concept was later developed as the primary concept for the nowadays modern-technology Glass Cockpit. The Airbus A300 with the newly modified Forward Facing Crew Cockpit concept was later-on known as Airbus A300B4-220FFCC and was delivered to Garuda Indonesia in 1982. Wiweko who himself is a rating pilot for the Airbus A300B4-220FFC type aircraft, personally flew himself the first Airbus A300B4-220FFCC Aircraft delivered to Garuda Indonesia, from Airbus Headquarters in Toulouse, France to Jakarta, Indonesia.

During its inaugural delivery, Fritz Winkelmann who was Airbus Far East Area Sales Manager delivered the following remarkable remark regarding the new breakthrough of a wide-body aircraft "two-man cockpit crew" initiated by Wiweko Soepono:"'It was Mr. Wiweko who gave birth to the two-man Forward Facing Crew Cockpit. We are proud that this type of aircraft has come to make use of an idea originating from the mind of a son of Indonesia, combined with the new and modern technology, which employes 'push button illuminated switches' and 'digital' system. The two-man cockpit has become a reality, and I believe that this Airbus A300B4-220 with the new 'Forward Facing Crew Cockpit' concept could become the choice of many Airlines around the world.'"For his achievement in modernizing the Airbus A300 cockpit that allows wide-body aircraft to be flown only by two-men cockpit crew, Wiweko was often credited as the father of "Two-Men Cockpit Crew" Wide-Body Aircraft.

Later life
Wiweko retired from his position as Garuda Indonesia CEO in 1984 and was succeeded by Reyn Altin Johannes Lumenta. Following his retirement, Wiweko remained active in the Indonesian aircraft industry and aeromodelling.

Wiweko died in St. Carolus Hospital on September 8, 2000, following a long illness. He was buried in Jeruk Purut cemetery, next to his wife Mieke who died just two years earlier, in 1998.