Oh those really were the days!
As a sim maintenance guy, taking oldest daughter to work of an evening and letting her "play with the 747" (
after all the snags were cleared, ofcourse!), same as we did for the guys at the airport fire department. Daughter later went on to be a hostie (sorry - "effay" these days) with a certain US Air - line, until the repurcussions of "9-11"
and loss of my ID90s and 75s
Doing "route trips" down to Southern Europe on the jump seat (so we could see just how the aircrfaft and crew really operate) on a VC-10. You "go on with the crew" but, because regs say you have to carry a ticket, come off with the pax, as they can take a whole bottle and "200" through customs, whereas crew only get a miniature and 40! (and getting
paid for doing that!)
The "airline parties", with visitors dropping in from DFW on ID100s for the night, and strict adherance to the (then) "8-hour rule" (must consume until one minute before the 8 hours
)
The messages that got sent to unsuspecting Res Agents and ticket desks, or apparent "wobblers" on their screens. Res Agents in LON chatting up ticket desk staff in far-flung places (via the Res computer- no internet those days!): Slipping away on a "service call" to JER or Genoa, but really to atend someone's birthday thrash there. (yes, there really
was a bulb blown on the town office keyboard
)
I'm out of it now, but from what I hear around, life's just not so much fun any more