Aviation Saftey Digest

[Arnold E]

I have this very day been throwing out paperwork from years of trying to learn stuff. One of the things I came across is my first Aviation Saftey digest, which is No 11 1957. Ridiculous really, but Hey, I just cant bring myself to throw them out. All manner of other stuff from previous training, mate I have it all, but Aviation Safety Digest, nup, cant do it.:p

[RV6]

That's a vintage edition, Arnold! Amazing that you've kept it for so long. Out of interest, what were the issues being discussed 55 years ago?

Cheers
RV6

[Arnold E]

From the index,....Aviation news and views, Overseas accidents ( a C46 and a Bristol 170), Australian accidents, (DH 82's, DC 3 and a Cessna), Incident reports, and design notes, (elevator control cables), pretty much what you would see today.:E

For interest, it was September 1957.:ok:

The first one with a glossy picture on the cover was No 14, June 1958, the picture was black and white.

[roundsounds]

I'll take them if you get to the point of throwing them out!

[Jack Ranga]

Arnold, were there any forced landings in the accident reports?

[Arnold E]

Arnold, were there any forced landings in the accident reports?

Yep, but no ballistic chutes.:E:E

[drpixie]

You've got the ones that were interesting. Do throw them out - I'll split them with roundsounds.

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

Hi Arnold, just a suggestion.....

Is there a 'suitable' flight school or aviation museum to which you could donate them??

One that would keep them in good condition / assessible for all students and pilots to read.

They are far too valuable in the lessons they contain and the quality of the many reports - Thankyou Mr Job - to simply 'disappear'.....

Cheers:ok:

[Arnold E]

The collection that I have will not just disappear, as I indicated, I could not bring myself to throw them out, but on reflection, one of the local museums may well be a good place for them to reside. I will think about that one.:ok:

[Kharon]

How about everyone throws in a few bucks and get then scanned to disc or into an electronic format, then we can all use them. They leave the sad, award winning new version struggling in the dust and remain as valid now as the were in 1957; they kept at least generation of pilots out of trouble, talking and thinking. Invaluable. I'm in.

Don't think I've even opened the last lot of the new thing; I know I've happily, with malice and aforethought, binned them all without a shadow of regret.

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

Whaddya rekon it wood cost Mr K..??

I'm 'open'......
:D

[roundsounds]

I'm happy to scan / PDF them if you don't have the technology.

[Philthy]

We have the Digests and a scanner at the Airways Museum, Essendon Airport, if anybody has the time to commit to scanning them. PM me.

[Centaurus]

Is there a 'suitable' flight school or aviation museum to which you could donate them??

One that would keep them in good condition / assessible for all students and pilots to read.


Believe me - Don't waste your time. It is only us oldies that appreciate aand yearn for Mac Job's Aviation Safety Digests of yesteryear. I went to a lot of trouble many years ago at Essendon where in those days there were several flying schools. I had lots of flight safety magazines including the dozens of ASD's that I gave to a couple of flying schools wrongly presuming students would seize them and avidly read the good gen. After all, many of the accident reports applied to the aircraft they were currently training on.

Big mistake. A month or so later I dropped in and found the magazines tossed into a corner and gathering dust and obviously unread or discarded. To me those ASD's were priceless but obviously not to the then current generation of students. I gave it another month and went back. The mags were still untouched in the same corner of the briefing rooms.

I thought `Stuff 'em" and carefully gathered the mags together and took them back home where they are to this day. I still read them. I am quite convinced today's students are simply not interested in old flight safety pubs. Maybe the odd enthusiast here and there, but they are a rarity. And I might add, that includes today's generation of airline pilots. They prefer Facebook and other social media.

[RV6]

That's depressing. Arnold's collection starts in the year I was born, and I didn't learn to fly til I was in my 30's, but I valued those magazines. I'd chip in to have them digitized for posterity. So much experience and wisdom - shouldn't be discarded.

RV6 - feeling old

[Howard Hughes]

Digitizing them is an amazing idea, where do I send my cheque? Oops I mean transfer the money to?;)

[Pinky the pilot]

Count me in with the digitizing!:ok: How much?

[Arnold E]

I have PM'd roundsounds so we'll just see what happens.:ok:

[Bevan666]

In the early 90's the Engineering Library at Melbourne Uni had a whole stash of them. Read them avidly!

Bevan..

[A37575]

Digitizing them is an amazing idea, where do I send my cheque? Oops I mean transfer the money to?

The subject of placing the whole ADS series on CD was discussed at length on Pprune a couple of years ago. While everyone thought what a wonderful idea, the project died a natural death when it was realised it was going to be a dedicated and big job to coordinate. In other words readers got a dose of realism. Of course the ideal people to do the job was CASA/ATSB since they were responsible for the original production of the magazine.

But it all costs money. While those of a certain vintage would have welcomed the opportunity of reading ASD's electronically, as Centaurus mentioned in an earlier post, few current student, PPL, CPL or ATPL licence holders would be interested. Pity of course but unfortunately they seem to be the facts.

[Flying Binghi]

.


We have the Digests and a scanner at the Airways Museum, Essendon Airport, if anybody has the time to commit to scanning them.


This is probably the best crew for the job - Home - Trove (http://trove.nla.gov.au/)






.

[Fantome]

Talking about finding a good home where long hoarded material can be donated this has been on my mind for a long time. I'd give my full set of ASDs tomorrow as long as continued access was possible. The drawback with digitalised copies is that are often inadequately indexed and lacking the detailed cross referencing that a researcher relies on. So for the time being there is no substitute to having the material open and laid out on a table or tables.


When you go on line and download back copies of FLIGHT and FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL it is a bugger of a job to sort and to follow logically a line of research. The quality of the scanning is also often not the best either.

Maybe that is part of the reason why single copies of FLIGHT or THE AEROPLANE from the twenties and thirties fetch anything from ten to twenty dollars.

The co-author of FLIGHTPAST Trevor Boughton would be a good man to hear on this. Trevor has been doing his own cutting service from all Australian periodicals and papers for fifty years or more. When I first visited his home in Mosman, Sydney in 1963 every room, every spare cubic foot of space was taken up with the archive. Not many know that he has for years edited and published his journal MAN AND AERIAL MACHINES (MAAM) from his home and pursued lines of research with a rigour not to be found elsewhere in any work done to preserve our aviation heritage, at least in respect to the written record.

[Tee Emm]

Slight Thread drift - but a few years back I bought from the Australian War museum at Canberra the complete set of the wartime RAF Flight Safety booklets called "Tee Emm" which is short for Technical Memoranda. Along with Aviation Safety Digests, Tee Emm occupies pride of place in my study. The RAAF received Tee Emm as well and many RAAF aircrew crew rooms had Tee Emm's. That's where I first read about the village idiot Pilot Officer Prune. Not Pprune but P/O Prune and his girlfriend Leading Aircraft Women Winsome. Each Tee Emm had a safety message as well as good gen.

A typical example was the heading 'Wear your Helmet and your Goggles" which describes a pilot's battle report in which he wrote: "As I broke away from attacking an enemy aircraft, a .303 and .5 bullet shattered the perspex, which entered my eyes and my face. I continued to dive to ground level, clearing blood out of my eyes...." That pilot might have been blinded or even killed, might have been shot down while incapacitated, or might have crashed. All through not wearing goggles.

It was P/O Prune, who after inadvertently landing wheels up in his Hawker Hurricane, was the first recipient of the Most Highly Derogatory Order of the Irremovable Finger. The medal has the motto Dieu et Mon Doigt.
A good job well done well done entitled the recipient to wear the The Most Commendable Order of the Vacated Orifice.

[Tinstaafl]

I miss the Digest. Not the toilet paper that replaced it. I've occasionally wondered if a complete set from #1 to the last could be constructed from the ones kept by various PPRuNers.

It would be fabulous for it to be digitised. Perhaps Google would do it as part of their massive scanning project? Copyright would be a problem, I expect.

[john_tullamarine]

We have a little project on the go. End result probably a small set of CDs. Opportunity basis for time but hopefully be done in the next six months.

[601]

today's students are simply not interested in old flight safety pubs

If it is longer than a tweet - forget it:ugh:

[Tinstaafl]

That's good to read, JT. Hope it goes well!

[rjtjrt]

John
I applaud you for doing this.
It will be a valuable resource for all, and cement your place as a fine and respected contributor to Australian aviation.
If it doesn't end up going ahead (heaven forbid), can you post here so someone/others can be alerted that the need for this is not being met?

John

[john_tullamarine]

The plan is not for anything gaudy - rather fairly pedestrian along the lines of a simple set of pdfs at reasonable resolution. Have played with some preliminary scans and it should work out OK.

Having access to a fast high end scanner helps.

[triadic]

I have a full set from No 1 which I recall was around 1953 (?). They will only move when I know they will have a good home. Wonderful idea to scan, but a big job. You need one of those new flash copiers that scan and pdf docs in 20 seconds! To do that you have to photo copy each page first, that will take the time!:ok:

[john_tullamarine]

ah, you have a slow machine, I see. Ours will colour scan the double sheet at a reasonable res and at a pace which suits my page turning speed.

The scanning exercise is boring but simple.

Post scan tidy up to get rid of any out of square and other displeasing defects will take a little time, I fear, but, based on some test runs, the end result is not too much of a pita.

Actually, it's an exercise in selfishness ... I'm missing a few of the full set and want a scanned library for my own use. Like most others here, I've always held the ASD to be a good publication and learnt a lot from it during my early (and more stupid, testosterone-filled) years ... I number myself within the ranks of those whose stupidity didn't quite result in fatality ..