Scudrunners

Soon the leaves will start falling again as 2016 slowly comes to a close and I got to thinking of all the years I spent in aviation and am lying here in bed thinking back to the years I yearned to be a commercial pilot and finally getting paid to fly an aircraft.

Time is difficult to understand as it is not a tangible thing such as the room I am in at the moment.

Time also can be flavored by the memory you have at the moment, and looking back at the fifty two years I flew for a living I honestly do not know if I would do it all over again given the choice of what I now remember.

Thankfully my career started and mostly progressed in an era of aviation that was truly interesting as aircraft and the means to control and navigate them improved. When I first became a commercial pilot the airways were flown by listening to the aural signals that were the Radio Range Legs of the national airway system, backed up by the ADF.

Next we had the VOR for far more accurate tracking of the airways and from there we are here now where the machine and the technology fly's the airplane in the whole three dimensional profile of the flight and the " pilot " monitors the automatics and pushes keys or twists knobs to change the aircraft's flight path and position in space.

One thing I am sure of flying the Radio Range in a big piston pounding airplane with no autopilot was really a satisfying experience and one actually felt part of the airplane......typing in a FMS and turning knobs in a big jet really has little comparison to the days we dreamed of flying and then actually worked our way up the being a pilot.


Anyhow I have been retired now since the fall of 2005 and like the year my life is slowly getting to the leaves falling point in time and I am thinking of maybe writing about what aviation was like over half a century ago, in some way I would like to think I owe it to the newer generations of pilots to record what it was like when aviation was in its earlier days.

I certainly have enjoyed your written stories about flying in Africa and France.

Chuck: You and I and others of our generation flew during the best of times...and for that I am ever thankful.  We learned to survive in spite of ourselves, learned from the mistakes of others and enjoyed the real thrill of flying.


Red tape by mindless bureaucrats have turned aviation into something that I am no longer a part of.  When I hear a controller saying "unable circuits at this time the circuit is full" and he/she has FOUR bloody aircraft to deal with just blows me away.  When I hear senior instructors declare that the use of flaps id  dangerous I am appalled . So much of this Bull Shit makes me sick.  When I handled 15+ Tutors in the pattern at MJ or 10+ mixed bag types at YPK safely and efficiently that was a good feeling.  When I taught STOL operation in the Helio Courier and Husky, that was a thrill and great to have the student understand and succeed in the exercise. that was satisfaction.


If I had to go back in time and start over again at age 18 I would not change my path in life. Sixty two years of flying and nearly 50 of those years in ATC, I had it all  But flying the old Adcock Range was enough to drive anyone insane!


Cheers my friend
Barney

The ignorance of how to fly an aircraft shown by many senior instructors is due to the ignorance within the regulator in the flight training department.


If you are incapable of making it in commercial aviation due to lack of piloting and decision making skills you will fit into the TC group just fine because you pose no threat to the incompetents who are in control of flight training.



So we should feel sorry for incompetent instructors because they were never taught how to fly in the first place.


If they were they could not spout the garbage they do.


Yesterday I was working outside on my front deck and a beautiful yellow Lake Amphibian landed of the lake right below me, for the first time in a few years I wanted to buy one and enjoy the pleasures of flying an amphibian again.


However reality overcame the memories of how flying used to be when I realized I would have to renew my medical to get insurance to fly it.


I would rather put my nuts in a vise and crush them then have to deal with the morons at TC again on any level.


You are correct, we were fortunate to have been in aviation when we were.


And today's generation are stuck with the system in place now and have no idea of how little they are being taught about the art of airplane handling skills.