I started flying for the joy of flight. I had no idea why I wanted to fly, but knew I had wanted to fly from the days I was a kid. I was lucky. My parents flew me backwards and forwards across the Atlantic in the days it took 24 flying hours and half a dozen stops. I still recall the chief steward passing down the isle with a joint of roast beef on his trolley asking his passengers whether they preferred their beef rare or well done. My parents chide me to this day that when I saw the flaps extend I cried out the wings were falling off to their embarrassment and to the consternation of every other passenger. I was truly lucky. I was a spoilt kid that treasured his BOAC log book and gold wings!
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I met a gentlemen a few years back at an airport in France who was still in charge of one of the few remaining airworthy Doves. He told the story of his early days flying the Atlantic. When a pilot reported he had lost an engine often it was meant in a literal sense. Fires were not uncommon. The bolts were sacrificially designed to melt and the engine fall to the sea below. The spare engines at Croydon (was it really Croydon) were hanging from the gantry by chains and really could be fitted in hours. Was it apocryphal, did he embellish his stories with a hint of poetic license, or a large dollop – I don’t know, but I guess every pilot was a pioneer.
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Flying for me has turned out a little like my childhood passage. I still recall the thrill of my first solo, as I am sure we all do. I think the only flying experience to ever exceed my first solo was the first time I did a loop, but there have been many other highlights along the way.
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One highlight, strangely perhaps, was finding PPRuNe, a forum from which I have learnt so much. In my early days on PPRuNe everyone seemed like an expert, the banter more forthright than it is today, the personalities larger than life and the “put downs” often merciless.
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Times change. I still love flying, but a flight around the local cabbage patch for flying sake does not hold the same sense of achievement – sadly perhaps, because I can’t help feeling we should think ourselves lucky every single time we take to the air. So the cabbages are rarely a feature these days; I fly for business whenever I can, I fly to go places that time would not otherwise permit, I fly to take the kids backwards and forwards to University and I fly so I don’t forget what it is like to turn myself up side down once in a while.
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In the same way PPRuNe has changed. The personalities are different, even if many of the questions are the same. The banter is different and if anything the personalities more reserved.
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My instructor friend tells me he still has a full dairy; he sees the same faces each year, the only difference being each year they each know another year has slipped by. Yet my eyes tell me things have changed. The parking spaces are no longer full with aircraft. The days when “you are number 8 to land” become much fewer, and are now seldom heard, the PFA rally at Cranfield with a 1,000 aircraft seems a distant memory. Airfields have gone, and will, I know, not be replaced. Many of those that remain have changed.
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And then there is the economy. People are counting the pennies, flying for flying sake is a pleasure and a luxury and so inevitably other priorities will determine how the pennies are spent. Enough may remain for a permit aircraft, but for many, I suspect these times may challenge their financially ability to continue flying. They also challenge the way we use our time. Bosses expect more form their employees and there is less time to pontificate on PPRuNe.
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[SIZE=]I am rambling, but I think there are any number of reasons why some of us feel PPRuNe has changed, has perhaps evolved. I feel I will contribute less, although that remains to be seen. I hope I have contributed usefully to PPRuNe over the years. I hope that the next “generation” of pilots will get as much fun out of reading some of the contributions on here as hopefully we all have. With regret I think as others private flying will become more difficult for many to justify not just because of the cost but for a host of other reasons that we have already discussed. That we will all be a little poorer in consequence I also regret. I hope people will continue to contribute to PPRuNe with as much enthusiasm as they can muster. I hope we don’t end up with more people watching in the wings than putting finger to key because then not only will the contributors dwindle but so will the watchers. I hope PPRuNe is still going in ten years time. Most of all I hope GA continues to flourish even if it must also evolve to meet the challenges we all face. I think in its way PPRuNe is a reflection of what is happening to general aviation but PPRuNe's decline is more pronounced.[/SIZE]
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Guppy - Illusions, now there is a book, I still romantise the description of that biplane approaching so slowly that it seemed to defy gravity.
Last edited by Fuji Abound; 8th Sep 2010 at 22:40.