Who is in my right seat? That would depend upon the setting.
In the professional Fortune 500 corporate aviation world, unlike in your airline world Kevin, for the most part my right seater was just as often my left seater with whom we were peers, both of us captains with whom we alternated left and right seats and with whom for the most part we shared a mutual respect and do to this day after retirement. I may have one or two stories about “long flights on which I have pretended I had to explain aviation to a ninth-century Mongol or a starship captain who needed a lift”, but those stories are too few to mention, and in any case, the mention of those would be beneath my dignity as it should have been beneath yours. I have the utmost respect for most of those who flew right seat with me. I can only hope they have the same level of respect for me for when I flew right seat with them.
The other setting would be in my privately owned 1946 Cessna 120. Yes my wife has ridden in my right seat as has my mother. God bless them for their forbearance. The same for both of my kids and my grandkids. God bless them for the same reason too. Many of my non aviator good friends as well. Bless them all for putting their trust in me.
As for whom I might in my wildest dreams have taken to breakfast in the right seat of my private airplane? Jesus Christ. Mother Theresa. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Robert F Kennedy, the 1960s version. And though he would have been too humble to include himself in this distinguished company of right seaters, Neil Armstrong would be my right seater on my next breakfast flight. Actually, I’d want him in my left seat. Kevin, would you be humble enough to put Neil Armstrong in your left seat?
I still miss Paul Berge.
John Kliewer