Can't fly without them

[TonyR]

I just got July's "Pilot" mag with a copy of the Transair catalogue.

Ok I do live close to Scotland, and call me "tight" if you like but, flying gear has become a bit OTT and very expensive.

I think the GPS 111 Pilot at Harry M's price of £250 + VAT is good value and a useful piece of kit.

A good headset is necessary but not at £600 ??

Portable Collision Avoidance (tells you when you are close to another "transponder" aircraft) £879

Wireless one touch weather station £499.95

Wind speed meter (hand held) £89.99

Fancy knee pad at up to £60 ( A4 clip board £1.99 Easons)

I have a good Alpha leather jacket which I found in TK Max at £75. I would not want to pay £300 for it.

Flight bags (with wings) £50 -£150

Ray Ban sunglasses £80

RAF gloves £34.95

Hi-viz vest £10.95 (£5 in your local builders supplies)

Stop watch £40 (cooking timer from pound streacher £3.99)

Spotters airband radio £179.99

Am I just out of touch with the modern pilot?

What do we really need?????

Tony

[Windy Militant]

An Aeroplane :ok:

[Fly Stimulator]

I'm sure Genghis could point out at least some machines that could be had for less than the total of that little lot!

One way of avoiding at least part of the Transair tax is to buy foreign charts from online suppliers in the countries concerned. French ones are often less in Euros than they are here in pounds for example.

[MLS-12D]

Hi Tony,

You're right, there's any number of gadgets that one could buy ... including two things strangely omitted from your list, viz. an expensive chronograph wristwatch (okay, I own one ... but it was a gift! :O ), and a large set of embroidered wings (sewn on the left breast of one's jacket ... in a pinch, a hat with the word "PILOT" in large letters will do!).

Notwithstanding the above, just go to any golf supply store if you want to see a really impressive collection of useless accessories for sale. With apologies to any golfers who may read this, I never could understand the market for the many tacky desk items out there: okay, you play golf, good for you, but why are you so proud of that fact? The really good golfers have no need for this sort of stuff (http://www.designergolfgifts.com/deskimg/pen-holders-lg.jpg).

[TonyR]

Funny you should mention golf,

My wife's friend got her husband a "stained glass" golfer for the window in their front door.

I need to think about this before I say too much, as I have a Piper Cub weather vane outside the house and my son must have 200 aircraft models all over the house.

Tony

[Ace Rimmer]

MLS, I my experience it's your non golfing friends and relations that tend to buy you the tacky golfy cack. Got a load of it in the attic. Yer actual golfer tends to spend stupid sums on equipment...like ahem.... balls Titleist ProV1 for example are a least a tenner a sleeve and even if you don't lose em they'll be knackered after a round.

[FlyingForFun]

That is a shocking list of prices, Tony.

But the only item on your list which is actually necessary is a good headset. Most of the other stuff is totally unnecessary, and those bits which are necessary (such as the kneeboard, and, depending on how anal the airport authorities are where you fly, the hi-viz vest) can be made or bought somewhere else cheaper.

The moral is that this crap is there for those of us with the money to buy it all. And for those of us without the money, you can get away with a bare minimum of £2.95 for an "I'd Rather Be Flying" car window sticker :}

FFF
--------------

[Kolibear]

All hobbies are now seen as 'marketing opportunities' and a large industry has sprung up to convince us to buy expensive and useless pieces of kit.

I used to go to the Bird Fair, the birdwatchers equivalent of Aerofair and there you could buy anything for the discerning birder.

There were stands selling the essentials such as binoculars, telescopes, tripods and field guides, al the way through to useless things such as electric heaters for your bird bath! And people fall for the line "this piece of kit is essential for today's birdwatcher", when its just not true.

PS - I,vejust ordered a GPS III for less than £300 inc VAT, Garmin are ceasing production of GPS3s soon.

[High Wing Drifter]

I agree some things are OTT, like wind computers (not the essential CRP, those things with string) and time calculators. But it would be disorganised bedlam in the HWD household without instrument fridge magnets - I can tell you!

Personally, I like my fancy pants A5 kneeboard. Because of it I have a very simple system for all the documentation (plog, pooleys plates, etc) that I use on a flight and it works for me.

I also have a transair blue bag. I am frankly the type of person who hates hunting round for the right thing and for 'bargains'. If I am at Transair I will get what I need there; a one stop shop.

[Penguina]

Kit bag of this lowly Penguin

*Bag closely resembling shape of Transair flight bags with lots of handy little pockets, personalised by embroidery: £2.99, Lewisham Shopping Centre.

*A4 Clipboard with hole drilled in for stopwatch and knee-strap contructed by this Blue Peter pilot from stick-on velcro: £2.50 inc. velcro and electricity for drilling.

*Checklist lifted from club's lost property drawer: £0.

*Incredibly reliable wristwatch with second hand and instant legibility in the murkiest of cockpits: £22.99 from Swatch stall at Liverpool Street Stn.

*Set of permanent markers for chart: £1.25, Rymans

*Permanent marker remover: 65p from chemist (nail varnish remover) and cloth is 1 piece of ex-running shorts.

*A cheap and reliable alternative to reactolite glasses or designer prescription sunglasses - what I think of fondly as my 'Clive the Coach Driver' clip-on plastic shades (to be removed before approaching the hunky tanned refueller).

*Thin leather gloves - pressie, slightly soiled.

*Home made personalised plogger... did I say home made? Sorry, I think I meant office made! Cost: -£1.12 (rough amount after tax earned during afternoon in which designing took place).

I won't go on; it's getting boring.

NB - Ace Rimmer, I seem to remember from our memorable trip to Farnborough that if you work as an ATCO you can get golf balls on the cheap from the bird-scarer employed there, who collects the strays from a neighbouring course...

[FNG]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I am intrigued by the idea of Farnborough employing a bird scarer. I envisage someone dressed as a cross between Papageno and Worzel Gummage, capering like a loon on the airfield boundary. Is this what happens?

PS: personal flying kit: crumpled map (route, headings, wind and frequencies scrawled on map), one pen (lost it again, bugger), scrappy bit of paper if going xc, watch big enough to be seen from space (present from spouse), parachute (second hand, unused, taken from still warm body of previous owner), gloves (stolen from Brenda by AAC mate).

[MLS-12D]

Flying Airplanes: the First Hundred Hours (1980), pp. 8 and 9:

One feels inclined, at the outset of one's novitiate, to purchase a lot of equipment that supposedly is needed by pilots. Typical items include large chronometers with concentric dials crowded with numbers; digital watches giving Zulu time; fancy sunglasses; aluminum computers that can figure out drift angle and Mach corrections; electronic calculators specially intended for pilots; chart cases; plastic place mats made of aeronautical charts; decorative relief maps of states; tumblers decorated with antique airplanes; aeronautical cuff links and ties; copies of the inescapable poem High Flight printed on imitation parchment with burnt edges, glued to a piece of wood similarly damaged; "pilot's magazine" subscriptions; and, as they say in the ads, much, much more. None of this stuff is worth a damn. Begineers are persuaded to buy the items in the belief that flying is going to be a complex, specialized, demanding activity that will require them, or that all pilots have them. There may also be an element of vanity involved, and the primative notion that when you possess all the paraphernalia of a pilot, you are a pilot....

So much for equipment. We are a nation of compulsive buyers. and the temptation to equip ourselves for every activity is almost irresistable. So if we want to go out into the wilderness we buy hundreds of dollars worth of down bags, weightless backpacks, lunar boots, transubstantiated foods, and titanium cookware, only to meet on the trail a whistling man with a dog, a ranger who has lived there all his life who is on a three-day, eighty-mile circuit of cabins with an army surplus bag on his back, a sack of rice, some cans of soup, and a package of Oreos. He is wearing sneakers. It is the same with aviation. A beginner spends a hundred dollars on a lot of gadgets and only later, slowly, does it dawn upon him that his instructor, who has four thousand hours and flew Crusaders on carriers, has nothing but a Timex with a broken band in his pocket and a ballpoint pen in his shirt.This pretty much sums it up!

[High Wing Drifter]

Oh yes, just to show I am capable of budgeting: I have been showing off my new fancy pants watch too. Got it 'free' with a Pilot subscription. Not a bad little ticker all said and done :ok:

However, with Golf. I have observed a similar process. People start with the whippest borrowed cane clubs that they found in a house clearence sale. Withing weeks they are convinced that their complete inability to hit the ball is entirely centred on their less than moden equipment. To be seen next week unloading a motorised bag and a full set of titanium, graphite Callaway warbirds on show. Still looses six balls a round. Am I also describing myself...quite possibly :O

Anyway, keeps the economy strong...

Penguina,

Permanent marker remover: 65p from chemist (nail varnish remover) and cloth is 1 piece of ex-running shorts.
No need for that even. Just use a pencil eraser on laminated charts. Works well :)

[Fly Stimulator]

...digital watches giving Zulu time... ..are available cheap from that well-known aviation emporium, Argos.

[ACW 335]

Permanent marker remover: 65p from chemist (nail varnish remover) and cloth is 1 piece of ex-running shorts.

Old non-permanent pen remove permanent pen :D or as HWD said a nice pencil eraser and a bit of spit (nice).

I don't even own a watch.... i use the windy uppy one in the cockpit or if i can't remember i use the club phone and ring up tower :}

[MLS-12D]

If you can find a working cockpit clock, you obviously fly better-equipped aircraft than I do!

[ACW 335]

Its a wind up one though...so only works if i wind it up and can input the correct time.....!!

[TonyR]

I was flying from Belfast one day when I heard the following.

ATC; G-ZZZZ Do you have an estimate for the Shannon FIR

Pilot; Em.. None of us have a watch

ATC; I suppose we could say about 20 min from now then

Pilot; I suppose

ATC; Well i'll let you know when you have crossed the FIR then

Pilot: Thanks


Who needs a watch with that kind of service.

[ACW 335]

Those watches they advertise in Transair are soooo expensive!

[MLS-12D]

There are some jaded pilots out there who would suggest that when asked for an ETA, if reasonably close to the airport or VOR one should always just respond "10 minutes".

Of course, I am much more professional ... I pull over and park the aircraft whilst I go back to my fully-equipped chart room and calculate the ETA, factoring in such factors as speed made good during the last half hour, density altitude, winds aloft, etc. :p

[High Wing Drifter]

ETA? My thumb is 6 mins or 10nm. Best thumb in the world. Couldn't live without it :8 Another handy (geddit?) thing is from the end of my thumb to the tip of my little finger is 60nm and the chord of my hand x-ways is 30nm (just measured it, hadn't noticed before).

No rude ripostes please :E

[boomerangben]

Most useful bits:

Large paper clips for keeping the chart under control.

Large yellow stickies with the plog on.

Everything else is wasted fuel when flying a Robbie.

[High Wing Drifter]

And if you're into quaint things like planning then the CRP has to rank a top tool...:ouch:

[FNG]

Planning? Is that the bit when you say "has anyone got a map?"

I like all this inverted snobbery anti-kit stuff, evren though we've all secretly got cupboards full of useless aviation tat as featured on the related thread, but a hobby isn't a serious hobby unless it requires expensive purchases of very specialised items which you never use.

[Penguina]

Just use a pencil eraser on laminated charts.

I had a phase of toying with that, then realised that it was beginning to remove features from my chart too. Like Stokenchurch mast, for example.

ETA? My thumb is 6 mins or 10nm. Best thumb in the world.

You can always tell the pilots with the super-duper shiny £999.99 + vat GPS here. 'ETA [I]at 42, 17 seconds.'

Just like me with my Swatch watch and Fisher Price abacus (VAT free from Early Learning Centre) really... :rolleyes: ;)