sixtiesrelic

BUT Darren, the pilots CAN get the DC-9 out of a mess that they inadvertently get themselves into (unexpected severe down draught) by applying FULL power and not the maximum the company decides they'll set in the computers to lengthen the life of the engines. It's like the gooody two shoes bloke in the DC-6 who hit the ridge top and wipedout the aircraft, because he used 'Maximum except for takeoff power' because he wasn't taking off. The lot... and he'd have missed the top by many feet. Buugger the engines... save the plane. I won't go in an Airbus when there's a Boeing going my way.

Jetstar!.... DC-9 to silly bl00dy Airbus... what a STEPDOWN.

I'm told you can learn to fly ultralights if you hold a car license. They're a bl00dy side more realistic than CASA. Even if you just go and do a couple of solos and give it away you'll have gotten the biggest thrill aviators experience.

You're ten years in front of me. Still goggles and helmets, no radio or brakes when I started. Now they were the days... no new age bulldust like Human resources, ASIC cards, golden bars on your shoulders... YOU learned to FLY an aeroplane properly. Maybe you should continue where you left off.

I took thissy of it in 1962 at Archerfield. It was the first home built I'd ever seen. Got the girlfriend to give it a cuddle to show how tiny it was. The smallest aircraft we'd seen at that time was a Cessna 150

My answer is YES you can get a huge amount out of Flt Sim Flt Sim 2004 has very realistic addons for the Australian scenery. Each new version takes a lotng time to have people building scenery of their area and then putting it on the net. Regularly a new version won't take the old scenery and those builders who have learned how, can't be bothered going through it all again.

Which side of Brisbane do you live?

It's interesting how at the time it's not seen as historical but more 'at last she DOES work'. I like the fact that it was filmed and not lost to then later generations who find it interesting. Thanks Lutz. Do you fly yourself? Always a bit daunting to follow a father who really made it.

Hi PlaneInsame, The problem with the A380/747 or even 767 is BIG fuel tanks, long legs over water, one take off and landing for the flight. Second officers get to sit in one of the pilot chairs sometimes. F.O. sits there for years getting some takeoffs and landings. Medium weihth aircraft... 737 etc, F.O. gets roughtly half of the normal four legs a day and gets to be 'pilot flying'. I think THAT is what we all want to do ...fly. Jumbos for the money; Medium for the flying in the big airlines. Your cousin has found being a big frog in the small pond and flying not button pressing is what most hopefuls see for themselves but get blinded by the hype about airlines being the top of the heap. Airlines were up to twenty years ago, but that's GONE now.

check your Private Messages. Sixties

A funny story... My friend is a manager in a couple of video stores. He finds the people from the Noosa branch (Probably tourists from elsewhere??) more prone to bring the DVDs back days late and announce they're not paying the late fee. They're told something along the lines of, "You've got a choice pay now' or have the be-uniformed debt collector in the prominently advertised car visiting you to collect. You'll pay them $30 plus what you owe us... first week. Don't pay and they'll be back for visit no. 2 next week and you'll pay them $60 plus the late fee. Don't pay that and they'll see you in court and you'll lose! One young buck said, "See ya in court! I'm a law student and I DON'T have to pay you". Went to court and landed up paying $1600. The 'old crusty' opposite him decided to wipe the floor with him. Didn't like some student thinking he had a chance against a tested and proven pro. To add more to flying simulators. Most of us fought the b00ger and really didn't enjoy the experience. too much riding on the outcome. We were told it is exactly like the aircraft. We flew it like an aircraft and fiddled all the way. Guys who had gotten the jist of it flew on rails. they knew it was a computer and once everything was stable, eg. on climb cruise or descent... touch nothing. Till you put a new imput in everything stays stable and it'll continue on stably till you hit the ground or run out of fuel. How many of you can trim an aircraft and take your hands off and she flies along not gaining or losing height... plenty. BUT you can't leave it go for an hour and nothing changes. We all fly aircraft, continually having to adjust for small disturbances to the degree that we probably move controls when we don't have to. We're manipulators. Perhaps the X & Y generations who've been brought up with computers don't drive and fly like those from the older technology when cars needed constant imputs becauseof the rough roads.

why should they? Pilots (captain or not) are just performing their job that they have been trained to do, just as a factory line worker does or a doctor. Sorry Chris I can't go along with this. You simply can't put factory workers in with the other two. No one calls for blood when most people make any mistakes. There are hardly any industries where workers are under the microscope like pilots on RPT aircraft. They're watched by radar, black boxes, and ACARS from the moment they move. They are checked every three months and it's all taken very seriously. Private pilots have NO idea of the amount a commercial IFR multi engine pilot knows and has to do within fine tolerances. Doctors , they say, can bury their mistakes. Pilots mistakes have TV programs made about them and boards of investigators mull over for weeks, decisions, a pilot has seconds to make. I worked in factories before I got my license and I’ve worked in the pointy end of the most examined industry I know of. If I stuffed up in the factory and we chopped it up and chucked it in the bin. If I’d have stuffed up in an aircraft I’d have lost my job and if it was a major stuff up (Not crash) I could have gone to prison same as a doctor. Don’t know of any ‘workers’ who have that hanging over their head. Oh and I’m not sure what you’re getting at here …....Oh, and I have flown and landed a B747-400 and didnt crash it - it was at the QF center in Sydney in one of their 'state of the art simulators' : My question is … how many passengers were behind you depending on your not crashing. Like flt sim, Simulators have a reset button for taking you back to the start for another go if you come to grief and perhaps ‘ignore crashes and damage’ one as well. There ain’t one of those buttons in the aeroplane…. No second chances . They also have ways to take control of many external parameters, in that little panel behind the pilots in the state of the art simulators, to make things difficult for them and easy for you. Getting that simulator on the ground was a feather in your cap it takes a dab hand specially coming out of a very ligh aircraft, but it was not in the real world where you have wind, thermals and turbulence to make things difficult. To put this in perspective:- You’re a pilot. You’ve gone through the training one step at a time. You know your stuff. You passed the exams and checks. Plenty of flight simmer reckons they’ve got so much experience T HEY could fly a plane. Might he not rip the wings off because he doesn’t know about the maximum control deflection speed. The flight simmers I’ve seen are a hell of a lot more ham fisted than pilots. What’ll happen when his bum leaves the seat when he PUSHES… remember how you’ve been taught to ‘ease’ the pole. You know what yaw feels like, what causes it and how to stop it. You use YOUR bum much more than you realize and that’s why you are a smooth operator. He’s never felt all the flying forces in his computer chair. How will he contend with sudden yaw and pitch. What’ll happen if he closes his eyes during this. Mate he’ll scare himself in a very short time and ask you to take over. You have climbed to the first storey of the flying tower, one step at a time. There are a few more floors to go and there’s as much in climbing those steps as you’ve climbed already. As mentioned above, this is a great site where gentlemen can have differences of opinion, air them fully and remain friends. We see things differently because of age and experience and don't have slanging matches. If any of us get a cheance to meet each other, we'll gladly do it, because at the bottom of it all we LOVE aviation. Uncle Chop Chop and I are friends and there's well over forty five years between us. I saw him burned in other forums for being young and keen. He's not a pilot YET but that keeness got him a ride over more othan half of the continent in a DC-3 a couple of years ago. There's another here who went for the whole journey too, bcause he's another good bloke. Most of us like sharing the pleasure.

edited ... repeat

We seem to be bringing in a side issue or two. Let's look at learning to fly and learning to be a musician, so we are out of our box and can see how I see flying from a different perspective to some of you guys. Primary school kids learn to play the recorder or violin... music students. Come the concert, and teary eyed mother is proud of young Ashley... "He played his piece right through without getting a note wrong". Rest of the audience clap politely. Kid keeps going with the music and a few years later plays solo in the school concert. Audience claps appreciatively ... Private pilot. He ain't going on the Burt Newton show at this stage. Continues to study and practise and after a few more years he gets paid to play at pubs or weddings…. Audience sings along and gets his card so they can have him to one of their doos.... Commercial. More years of study and practice and he can arrange known old standards to his jaz rendition of them and has learned presentation. Plays on cruise ships. Audience ask to buy all the tapes of his stuff. .... Pro. Primary school kids don’t really understand what the teacher is getting at when he’s trying to get the singer to hold notes a little longer to get more feeling into the song, or give it some vim, like the cruise ship musician who plays two instruments and sings, does. When I was a primary school kid, ‘vim’ equalled louder in our minds. Private pilots have been trained to fly small aeroplanes competently and safely enough to take passengers. They’re justifiably proud of the accomplishment and know ALL they’ve been taught. It’s been a long hard slog with many moments of doubt that they have it in them. They've been put throught their paces by CFIs and examiners. If they haven’t had the doubts deep down inside, they ain’t that good. Get in a twin and it’s a whole new ball game. Learning stuff you've not even thought of before in singles. Start an IFR rating and you’re back with the doubts and heaps of stuff you've never considered before. Get in a plane over 5700 KG and it’s another new ball game. Get in a jet and you think you have ten big toes on the ends of your hands till you do many, many, months of study and training. I checked out my student pilot license number from 1960 and compare it with my PPL number in 1961 (We got different numbers then) Student no. 19021 Private licence no. 3731 … bl00dy lot started learning to fly who didn’t get to PPL. Of every five who reckoned they’d become a pilot, only one got there. It was hard and that one kept going and succeeded. He’s in ‘the band of brothers’. So mister private pilot; If you’re out somewhere and some bloke announces he’s 'held a pilot’s license' and you ask him about it and he finally admits he didn’t actually go solo, do you regard him as you would the PPL bloke who can comfortably fly his mates to Hamilton island in a lightie? You know that pre-solo bloke doesn’t even know about the intricacies of navigating through, and the radio procedures required to fly in controlled airspace and primary airports. Yeah he could pole a plane around the sky, straightish and level, if you gave him a go while you fold your map, but he ain’t at your standard and you know it. To the non pilot listening to the conversation he thinks, "WoW! … a pilot’s license", which is what the announcer / imposter… wanted.

Professional pilots have a code... Don't big-note yourself. It's been round since Kingsford-Smith was a student. Doctors love their handle. You'll go far to find a real captain require to be refered to, by his title outside an aircraft and it is his right. The poms used the title till the mid 1900s the same way people refer to doctors as 'Doctor' The posers generally aren't particularly good pilots. That's why they have to advertise. Sorry! a three hundred hour toy aeroplane pilot ISN'T in the same league as a real pro.

Hi Chris. RAA... came about to avoid the bulldust of the VH- world. Great for playing and enjoying flying but still stuck with increasing pomposity but avoid a lot of the expensive bulldust. VH- ... completely overtaken with nonsense compared with past times and costs too much. Lost the simple pleasure of 'going for a fly' by introducing airy fairy modules, concocted by academics who study real people who don't explain the most basic knowledge to the studier, so he doesn't get the course overly right and he remains hiding in uni cloisters not coming out into the big bad world. Airlines... pilots who spent years flogging charter aircraft around having to keep the boss and the passengers happy and yet not bust heaps of rules doing it, or work their way up the instructor ladder for years. When they had a thousand or so hours they MIGHT be called in for an interview. IF they were one of the lucky ones and MADE IT, they went through months of ground school, endorsement, like none of you have much idea about and then a hundred hours of gruelling training with failure and " sorry we won't need you" very prominent in the mind. There was a progress check where you were put through your paces and then a day of route check and two hours of assymetricas and emergencies, mostly under the hood to be pronounced ready to be a F.O. Once 'cleared to the line' they were on probation for a year. Stuff up .... and kiss the job goodbye. In that year, there was a follow up check and two Assy and route checks. These professionals with well over a thousand hours (There were a couple of small time slot windows when there were shortages and blokes got in with a couple of hundred hours) wore one thin bar on their shoulders and the passengers knew they were junior pilots. After two years they got their second stripe. After about ten years (some waited eighteen years) they might get their command on a DC-3 or Friendship. You don't just change from the right to the left hand seat. You are put throught the wringer for a couple of months. Once you pass you got a new set of epaulettes... two and a half bars. After two years as a captain you got your three bars. Well after jets had arrived in OZ, the four bars appeared for jet captains. Those stripes were EARNED by very experienced pilots who'd really proved themselves, getting those checks every six months... they now do simulator checks every three months. EVERY check is fraught with the nagging feeling, "If I fail I'll have to do retraining and THEN they'll REALLY look at me. Fail that and demotion... fail in the next phase and good bye job!" Remember the stress of your license check... same feeling four times a year, and your family's lifestyle is at stake... it aint playing. Blokes like Chris have the same stress on them, but recreational pilots who are ready to rush to the cockpit and take over the big jet when the pilots get incapacitated. Naa! no idea; AND by the way, even though you're a whiz at flying the A380 on flt sim; disengage the auto pilot in the real thing and you'll die. Seeing some pimply faced youth strutting around an aerodrome with the golden shoulders grates on the older blokes. A CFI I have a great respect for... he checks Bandit and Metro pilots for the airlines as well as teaching students, flew DC-3s, Boeing 707s and most smaller aircraft. He doesn't bother wearing any wings and gold braid and he has a form of epaulette for his commercial students to give them the feeling of professionalism. They have the name of the flying school in lieu of golden bars. RAA and airlines.... chalk and granite. I've done both... RAA fabulous! It's the spirit of flying. Airline flying ... no freedom. Point the nose in a specified attitude, apply an exact power setting and you get the required performance. The 'spy that lives in the ceiling' and tells you you're doing something wrong like, "Sink rate sink rate" or "too low flaps, too low flaps" dobs you in to the company and then it's a session in front of the boss's desk for explanations. You don't fly airliners! the auto pilot does! That's why so many airline pilots own lighties and many are RAA.. they want to FLY.

Not really value for money is it... they didn't even have time for sandwiches and a bottle of drink. Checklists all the way.

Went to a flyin on the weekend. There were tiny single seat homebuilts to whopping big bulky Trojans, and everything between. There were RAA students to 30,000 hour retired airline blokes admiring the aircraft and the guts that combated CASA and it's ancestors to allow these flying machines into tha Aussy air. A toy areoplane arrived with a big bloke and an ant in it. They didn't get it real straight when they parked it so had to push and pull it into a neat position in the line up. The ant was wearing the beaut uniform with the embroidered wings on the chest and the golden shoulders. He was noted and ignored by his betters. Hundreds of 'em. My friend wandered over and talked to the ant and asked about flying RAA aircraft and the ins and outs of it; he's almost ready to do his commercial license test. The youth proudly announced that he's an instructor with 350 hours and is thinking of getting a private (VH-aeroplane) license. I decided to give him a bit of advice about how he was being regarded by a great nuumber of people... "good thing to take the epaulettes off now ... you'll be regarded as a wanker by the real pilots" He wasn't having any of that ... he wanted to look the part and impress people. Reckoned I'd have to take it up with his CFI I told him, blokes spent ten years as airline pilots in heavy metal before they got to wear three bars and wouldn't view him as anything other than a W@nker. He didn't seem to understand. There was about a million hours of heavy metal experience there ... twenty and thirty year captains... They'll remember his face. Some of them interview in airlines. Real pilots don't prance and they don't really like imposters parading around pertending to be what they aren't... It's a bit like cops and shopping centre security guards. One does, while the other pretends. Mate! get the epaulettes and wings off once you're away from your aeroplane because the ones you should be impressing are going to note you in a way you'd prefer they didn't.

Well to-day's the twentieth anniversary of the demise of the great old days of the Aussie Airlines. Before 24th August 1989, crusty old and bold Captains who'd learned the craft from crustier, older and bolder pilots, taught the young blokes how to think and plan and remember the little embarrassments so they aviated. They knew when these new computers were giving out erroneous info because of finger trouble. They mentally calculated a rough figure of what they’d expect to see from the EXPERIENCE they’d gained over the years of looking up graphs and knowing all the little the rules of thumb. They could push up FULL power if that was going to get them out of trouble and bugger the engines if it was going to save everyone. Today throttles are becoming just switches which apply a power setting computers are programmed to apply, NOT full power but what companies reckon the maximum power they want to set… maybe 95% to save the engines. To-day pilots operate and monitor computers which fly the aircraft for them. What was the dispute about? A vindictive little prime minister helping an airline owning mate crush a union to bring the unions to heel prior to de-regulation. They chose the strongest union in the group; one that had stood up to him when he was the leader of the ACTU. They wouldn’t be affiliated with the ACTU the same as every other professional group wouldn’t. Who won???... no one Who was in the stoush? Ansett, TAA, East West Airlines, Ipec, The hawke labor government and the Australian Federation of Airline pilots. Who’s left still operating? …. The AFAP. Many people didn’t like the word ‘scab’ yet there were those who ‘were offended‘ at hearing that term who used the term ‘labor rat’ with spiteful venom. Seems if people rat on the labor party, they’re much worse than those who scab against unions… but then, isn’t labor the party for the unions??. The truth will never come out, but I’m proud to have been part of it.

Missed da plane... Bit like like the grade one teacher at my school; Mister Wire. Couldn't work out why she was called Mister! Check tour PMs Sixties

Ah Sizaudin... we get many days warning of cyclones so we can do what's needed to protect our planes. They don't come barrelling in like cold fronts. When Mackay is being bashed Brisbane hasn't any strong winds most Cyclones. They come slowly down the coast. I've flown through my share of cyclones and apart from lots of rain and strong wind they're not THAT dangerous. Certainly not ripping planes apart. One in the seventies was only about seven thousand feet thick... clear on top. My father flew through ten times more than I did and the the only time he thought he was going to die was in a front between Adelaide and Melbourne in a Viscount. They reckoned they were going to lose their wings. We've all got our own 'scary stuff that the locals take in their stride and others reckon, "Not for ME"

"Good flying weather has been hard to come by of late. " Now Coop ... In Queensland! Even the wettest winter I remember, me mate Mal flies the Gipsy in shirt sleves in the middle of the day. Put his coat on at four but still was wearing shorts for that late fly. Naturally you have things we don't... can.t think of them tho.

Now here's what Pennicuik looked like when he was a DC-3 F.O in PNG.

I only saw it the one time but was reminded each time I saw KKO when he was yellow and white because I'd waited a year to see what colour scheme KKO would finally get.

I was talking to a mate who owned a Tripacer and he reminded me that there was a placard that said, "Level flight only, when left tank is less than a third full". That was because there was only one outlet in that tank. The other was an inlet from the aux tank under the back seat. You had to transfer the aux fuel to the left tank ... couldn't draw from the Aux to the engine. Colin must have had the left tank selected and this would have cause me to think there was the fuel starvation.