Well now,
The smell of AVGAS in the morning, the growl of a P&W R-1830, pax that would talk to you, open cockpit doors, boiled eggs for brekky as the sun came up, slide the window back, light the pipe, read the paper.
You were the refueler, loader, mail bag counter, ticket seller, oil topper-upper, loadsheet writer as well in a 20 min turn.
Picnics under the wing at remote stations, scones, cream, good crews, BIG nights on the stops with up to 20 crew in town, shared rooms, no aircon - all seems a dream at times.
Now in a lurching cave, paxing around in a security nonsense, pax are RUDE and their dress code even in J class is discusting.
SQ seem to still have some service of a good standard, but where has the roast, carved at your seat side, "a little more of the rare end ,sir??" gone?
I dont yearn for a return of all the old days, I might make the same mistakes all over again, but I do miss the freedoms we had.
C YA
The old greybeard
