Which brings me on to bŁoody 'kneeboards' and 'PLOGs'.....
I just use an A5 spiral top notebook with a biro shoved though the spiral. It'd be nice if someone sold a small, basic aluminium board which held a standard (e.g. WHS) A5 book and a pen or two and had a proper leg strap, not a weedy piece of elastic and velcro. All you can find in the Wannabe shops is either hinged padded foldy-uppy things with plastic insert pages, morse code and quadrantal diagrams, stopwatch holders etc - and those overcomplicated 'PLOG' forms. I do the planning on the ground, then china the leg headings and times and visual fix times, plus average w/v and max drift onto the chart. Work out any revised ETA in flight using the laminated back of the checklist (which also has a half-mill scale on one edge) and a chinagraph.
I hate those awful permanent pens with removable tops. They require 2 hands - what do you do with the top in flight? I've seen students try to stick them in their mouths - which guarantees a radio call.....
Chinagraph or clicky ballpoint (especially the WHS ones with a rubber grip which is
exactly 10 miles on a half-mill!) are both topless.
Topless is the only way - which, I guess, brings us back to 'Quickies while flying'...
?