"The Good Old Days"

[CopilotDoug]

Yeah-They just it at the bar....

-Ahhh, the good old days!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8L-ZZSc8JU

Almost forgot, CRJ. I read that article you posted when it first came out a few months back. When that miserable old fart croaks, I will make it a quest to find out where he's buried and piss on his grave.

 

[crj567]

Almost forgot, CRJ. I read that article you posted when it first came out a few months back. When that miserable old fart croaks, I will make it a quest to find out where he's buried and piss on his grave.

Sign me up!

What a complete assbag that old man is... He is actually proud of completely wrecking the industry and ensuring decades of losses for employees, investors, and anyone else dumb enough to be associated wih any airline.

-Seriously-are $59 fares to Fresno really worth all the wreckage these morons wrought? Just imagine what all the airlines have lost since this old gasbag pushing deregulation through congress.....

-Actually gloating-amazing!

 

[airbrush]

FYI....the original post is not not mine. I simply found it and decided to post it without comment. I'm not old enough to have been there, and my flying is purely for fun; even my airline dispatch days may be over the way it looks. But I thought I'd put it out there just for fun....I'm sure those days were just like any other time, a mix of good and bad, remembered as we wish.

 

[phr8dawg]

I don't get warm fuzzies about the airlines, old or new. What is vanishing from the world are the old-school FBOs with cut-shirt-tails on the wall next to yellowing polaroids of first solos. Teenagers obsess on Facebook and buy anything they want from Ebay and Craigslist. They certainly aren't out at the airport washing planes for rides. The steamgauge trainers are finally reaching the end of their lives along with the piston twins. A MILLION BUCKS for a piston Baron! The classic flight school is vanishing.

I've read that a third of all operating flight schools have vanished since 9/11. Remember the styrofoam cup compass? Remember that Sporty's C152 panel poster with the ugly brown plastic Cessna used? I have a framed one. Someday I will retire and recreate an old flight school, right down to the cheesy toy cardboard plane with the moveable control surfaces. I might even use old Jepp hoods for IFR. No glass, no retracts, no turbos. Real live working ADFs!

Maybe this is a thread segway, but this part of our heritage is vanishing right before our eyes. I'm still a CFI. I will always be a CFI. I hate to see it go.

 

[lookin4better]

A few less flight schools/puppy mills could'nt hurt.

 

[airbrush]

phr8dawg....

I hear you. I learned to fly in the mid '70s at a flying club that was pretty much just like you described....lots of shirttails hanging all around the room, all of the old low-tech learning devices (I remember when we got our first desktop flight simulator...the ATC 510, I think? It was quite a sensation!). Although we can't do much to stop the march of technology (and should we try?), maybe the Sport Pilot certificate will help keep some of that "fly just for the sake of flying" spirit alive. I gave up my dream of flying professionally many years ago (thankfully, before investing lots of $$$), and realized that I was happiest when things were as simple as possible. Give me a blue sky, some green grass, and a yellow J-3 with the door open and leave me alone....I'll be back in an hour, will never climb above 500 feet, and will be smiling for days.
On the other hand, I was rereading Richard Bach's "Nothing By Chance" recently, as he recounts barnstorming aroung the midwest in the 1960s. Even THEN he was lamenting about the planes sitting around unused, the lack of activity at the small airports, and worried about the future of general aviation. I don't want to see us go the way of Europe, but maybe things will still turn out OK.
When you start that FBO, let me know. I'd love to drop by....

 

[CopilotDoug]

Real live working ADFs!

You'll definitely chase off the SJS crowd with those!

 

[dougdrvr]

You'll definitely chase off the SJS crowd with those!

Especially if you make it fixed card, and a night circling approach in blowing snow.

OOPS, off topic in a thread about the good ole days.

 

[dougdrvr]

Someday I will retire and recreate an old flight school, right down to the cheesy toy cardboard plane with the moveable control surfaces. I might even use old Jepp hoods for IFR. No glass, no retracts, no turbos. Real live working ADFs!

Maybe this is a thread segway, but this part of our heritage is vanishing right before our eyes. I'm still a CFI. I will always be a CFI. I hate to see it go.

Don't leave out the ripped screen door, a dog with an infected ear, and some dead flys.

 

[Minimaniac]

And don't forget pumping 100 octane into a can for the guys headed to the drag strip on friday night!

 

[phr8dawg]

Actually the dog will have no tail, and a particularly bad memory of props. But there will still be a dog. And the ADF will be a fixed card, enough of RMIs. No GPS allowed.

I intend to call it the "Ace Flying School," because that is the most common slur used against inadequite schools. "Passing Wind Aviation" was a runner-up. It has to look right, sound right, feel right, and be the best school in the area. Because....

Airline pilots make seat-per-miles, but


Flight Instructors make Airline Pilots!


Don't forget where you came from.

 

[tomgoodman]

Older school

And the ADF will be a fixed card...

ADFs? Pshaw! Let 'em listen for the null between "A" and "N", then solve the 180-degree ambiguity. Better yet, follow the railroad to the nearest water tower, staying just right of the tracks to avoid opposite-direction traffic.

 

[Tarquinn]

Don't forget the old couch mended with duct tape, the large planning chart on the front wall and the coffee cups hanging in the back room (you could tell who had been there the longest by the amount of sludge in the bottom of the cup.). And when you were a new CFI, you learned to always beware of other CFI's giving away students...

 

[g-code]

While I would love to get rid of track suits and pajamas on passengers and about 40 years and pounds from the FAs, don't forget that generation ME has some heroes too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Tillman

Ditto. I personally think "generation me" involves the 30-40 crowd. I was a junior in high school during 9/11 and enlisted in the Marines to go kick terrorist @$$ upon graduation. Two of my friends paid the ultimate price.

 

[dougdrvr]

ADFs? Pshaw! Let 'em listen for the null between "A" and "N", then solve the 180-degree ambiguity. Better yet, follow the railroad to the nearest water tower, staying just right of the tracks to avoid opposite-direction traffic.

Or a Navy pilot on the wrong side of the tracks

 

[dougdrvr]

Don't forget the old couch mended with duct tape, the large planning chart on the front wall and the coffee cups hanging in the back room (you could tell who had been there the longest by the amount of sludge in the bottom of the cup.). And when you were a new CFI, you learned to always beware of other CFI's giving away students...

Following the string back to the hole was always the best way to find where you were without having to ask anyone

 

[Uncle Bunkle]

While I would love to get rid of track suits and pajamas on passengers and about 40 years and pounds from the FAs,

Looky here, Mr. Morals is calling all FA's fat and old. Shouldn't you be more concerned with their ability to do the job than their looks?

 

[Dumb Pilot]

Looky here, Mr. Morals is calling all FA's fat and old. Shouldn't you be more concerned with their ability to do the job than their looks?

All our cabin attendants are cute, petit, gracious and they do the job just fine. I don't think you need cankles and a bitchy attitude to be a cabin attendant, but maybe that is just me

 

[crashpad]

Hang in there guys..we'll get back to the good ol days when:

1) We start taking pride in ourselves, our profession...and demand respect!!!
2) Hire pilots that do this because flying is their passion...not because they're "2nd generation airline", "just supplementing income", or state: "It has been my experience...".
2) Double ticket prices
3) Employ only the finest (as in hottest) 'Stewardesses'.
4) Return to old school business tactics.
5) Outlaw new airlines, like Skybus.
6) Restrict commuter pilot hiring to the majors until they have 10-15 years of servitude.
7) Bar any airline from lowering prices, "$39/ONE WAY!!!.... to the point of insanity
8) Reenstate inflight meals.
9) Bring back metal pilot wings for children...and damn their eyes if they hurt themselves.

 

[pilotyip]

let bring back regulation, just like the good ole days. Life was good for a few pilots under regulation. There are probably 4-5 times as many pilot’s jobs now as there was in 1977. Back in reg time it was about 90% military that went to the majors. Dereg opened up a lot of airline job to non-military pilots. To return to regulation would raise ticket prices, reduce the number of passengers, and therefore reduce the number of pilots needed.