Originally Posted by
SNS3Guppy
Bader was one whom I always felt that though I could spend several lifetimes attempting to follow the footsteps, I could never be worthy of walking in them.
I suspect that had you met him, and told him of your proposition to follow his footsteps, he'd have done some particularly tricky tin-leg footwork to ensure you broke an ankle in the process of trying to follow.
He did have a bit of a reputation of being a tad on the grumpy side in the postwar years - but I rather hope the sporadic reports of traces of pipe-smoke being detected in the White Waltham clubhouse by the early crew are indeed caused by the shade of the old warrior sparking up in the small hours.
Regarding the thread topic, it would be interesting to have IO540 point to what he regards as vintage quality threads here and elsewhere, compared to the fare he is seeing on the forums today. If he could talk Pprune or Flyer into publishing figures on forum activity, even better - obviously, we could skew those overnight by starting topics on the subject of "Overhead Join - what sort of cackwit can't grasp the concept?", "GPS - navigation crutch or clubhouse crotch padding?" and the evergreen favourite "Inverted in the club Arrow at 600 feet - do I deserve quite such a rollicking?"