The fate of old Aviation Safety Digests and their ilk
Inevitably the time approaches when one has to clean out the shed and dispose of all the old aviation magazines acrued over the years including about 200 Aviation Safety Digests, plus aircraft flight safety articles, maps etc.
It would be a great pity if one is forced to bin the lot and I wondered if readers could come up with workable ideas? Enthusiastic collectors even? Are there organisations that could put them to good use? I am sure there are hundreds of Ppruners getting long in the tooth sooner or later faced with a similar situation.
I remember about 35 years ago bundling up my then collection of Aviation Safety Digests and taking them to a flying school at Essendon. The CFI said he would leave them in the crew room for students and others to read and keep. Three months later I dropped in to the flying school which was a busy place in those days, only to find the whole bundle still tied up with string laying under a desk unopened. I took them home again disappointed that few if any pilots showed interest. Yet in my long career as a pilot I had learned so much from reading those magazines.
Some years ago I placed them on a desk in the cafeteria at the former Ansett Flight Simulator Centre. There, pilots of different nationalities including Australians thronged the place; most of whom seemed more interested in their mobile phones than taking home an Aviation Safety Digest or two or three and reading it them. The reasons aircraft crash hasn't changed much over the years. Again no one seemed interested. Fortunately I was able to stop the cleaner who was about to chuck the lot into the rubbish bag along with used tea bags and tissues. Bloody sacrilege. Once more they currently rest peacefully in my shed. Free to a good home. PM me if necessary