TAA pilot's picnic 24th August 12 noon Anglers Tavern Essendon

[flying with Moose]

Monday 24th August, 12 noon Anglers Tavern Essendon ,
~ Anglers Tavern, Maribyrnong, Melbourne ~ Review and Details (http://www.melbournepubs.com/v/20/)

We're turning up, cold beer, juicy steak and chips and hope to see you there for a 'day to remember' ! Next day the TAA 89ers meeting for a little formal lunch at Percy's., there goes the head cells :ugh:

[struggling]

What a great idea.

Would be even better if TAA was still in existence and the Brisbane SRC could encourage his pilots to see how life really was in the Southern Capital by signing off on some Supernumery Travel Authorities.

Long live the memory.

[RHLMcG]

Surprised not to see a few more threads organising reunions.

In the absence of any AN threads, do you good BlueTail folk object to the odd AN chap turning up at the Anglers'.

[capt.cynical]

RHLMcG

about 89 reasons, maybe :eek:

[RHLMcG]

??
I was presuming that the original post related to those TN pilots who chose not to continue flying for the airline post 89 ? Likewise the AN reference.

If the subject related to another group of pilots, perhaps you might forgive my intrusion ?

[teresa green]

Also at New Farm BNE in Oct, AN welcome especially if flew Balus in NG.

[flying with Moose]

The AN 89ers are most welcome to join us TAA 89ers at the Anglers, be great to all catch up and find out where on earth we all ended up for the last 20 years, sent across the four corners of the atmosphere.

Look forward to seeing you.

[zube]

And how is the Moose travelling these days? Anyone have contact with him?

[sixtiesrelic]

Brissy 's having theirs on Sunday 16th

[Al E. Vator]

I've had a ball. Got me away from home, out living with other people and cultures, flying great aircraft and doing things I'd never have dreamed of. Otherwise I'd still be flying a 737 from MEL to SYD every day. It gave me such brilliant life experiences when I probably wouldn't have had the guts to get out of my safety zone.

What better reason for a celebration?

[Obie]

Q.E.D! :ok:

[tinpis]

Indeed :hmm:

[teresa green]

Well, it improved my french! Mind you, I used to miss a lazy sat arvo fly, picking up the footy scores as we went, and then home for a barbie!

[Stationair8]

At this picnic there is to be no discussions about aircraft, sex, religion or politics.

[dijon moutard]

Dear Moose
would you accept a son of Capt John Humphreys at this do ?

cheers
dijon moutard :ok:

[teresa green]

In all my years in TAA Stationair, they were the most frequent of discussions, along with the three S,s, Sex, salary and seniority, and of course the most important discussion of all, who you barracked for in the AFL. Us north of the border lads didn't stand a chance and were considered odd, in fact were called Bu&sniffers, due to our codes habit of forming scrums. Still, would do it all again tomorrow!

[3 Holer]

As I recall, you had to follow Essendon to sit with the "elite" in TAA! :E

[HANOI]

John Hickey was president of Collingwood !!!.

[Fantome]

For interested newbies on proone ......... see 'TAA and the DC9' thread in 'Aviation History & Nostalgia' forum.

[3 Holer]

John Hickey was president of Collingwood !!!.

That must have been early days.

I thought that Morey,Wiltshire and Searle were all die hard Bomber men?:confused:

[tipsy2]

Ansett's G McMahon was President of Essendon.

[3 Holer]

Yeah, but that was after the war when he was given the ass at Ansett :D

[teresa green]

Staying at the Crest Hotel one night, and after a steak and a beer our crew on the way back found a extremely dead magpie in the gutter, knowing one Capt. John Hickey was safely tucked up in bed, and knowing he always left his shoes out to be cleaned (you used to be able to do that without them being nicked then) we stuffed the deceased bird into his shoe (the maggies were having a horror season) and happily hit the cot. 0600 and the banging on my door was hard to ignore, and there stood(in his PJ,s) one extremely irate JH, naturally I denied everything, and suggested he contact one of the Flight Engineers, for further info (as you do). Do you think he would let it go, no, every crew room had signs posted for weeks calling for our scalps, so of course the inevitable happened, he turned up for a flight and there in his seat was, a, you guessed it, a dead magpie all carefully tied up in his harness, the F/O reckoned he was a hospital case (us northerners did not realise how serious AFL really was until then). :E

[Stationair8]

Just remember TG those lovely young air hostie's that you guys ogled are now doting grandmothers!!!

[teresa green]

I know Stationair, I am married to one, and I am as far down the food chain as you can get!:(

[Fantome]

The two Melbourne gatherings, Monday and Tuesday (yesterday), were well attended, especially yesterday's. Much fine fellowship, sustained chewing of the fat and frequent gales of laughter. Some of the more senior brigade trotted along, recounting many a yarn of wonderful folks in a wonderful era. Rancour, axe grinding - nil.

[RHLMcG]

I can't speak to yesterday's gathering - on the Monday it was great to catch up with a number of faces not seen for many years.

Not only was there no axe grinding but some comments evoking sadness, even empathy, for those who had taken a shorter term view of life 20 years ago.

Of particular interest to me was seeing just how well some of the more senior folk have aged so well - enough to put good wine to shame - chaps such as Brian G looked not to have aged a day in their appearance over the years.

Most of us, however, showed the usual expanding waistlines associated with an emphasis on the better aspects of life.

[Obie]

Can someone tell me why Greybeards thread a couple of days ago, on the same subject, was scrubbed by Tidbinbila, probably 'cause he obviously didn't like it?...

yet this one he apparently does like!...

perhaps even Tidbinbila himself might like to tell us?

[Fantome]

Maybe your tone's the thing that's a bit off. That thread was closed after four posts. None of them broached a serious subject - awards vs individual contracts - with anything like a clearly stated argument. The only quotable line was -

"It's very hard to invert the first letter in ME."

Stick it on your fridge.

[Wiley]

Have to admit that when I saw this thread, I thought "Gawd, I hope no one mentions the war (i.e., the whole reason for the picnic), or the mods will bin the thread".

The business of individual contracts is a pit like politics - timing is everything, and in 198-you-know-when, our timing was off - way off. And sadly, the vast majority of today's post '89 Australian pilots, some of the mods here included, seem hell bent on not learning a thing from history.

Some (most, it would seem) may choose to ignore it, but when you look at the state of the aviation industry in Australia today, the 24th of August 1989 was probably the most important landmark in Australian aviation in the 20 years either side of that date. It, and what followed over the nine months immediately afterwards, has undeniably set the standard for terms and conditions that any pilot flying - or aspiring to fly - professionally in Australia must exist under today and for the foreseeable future.

And it ain't a pretty picture.

Apologies to some if I've just caused this thread too to be binned. Blame it on three glasses of wine.

[boocs]

Wiley, I think your comments are fair and valid!! This could explain why I choose to currently work overseas til retirement due to the poor conditions in Oz.
As another colleague said to me when i asked "do you think you'll ever return to fly in Oz?"

"They couldn't afford me" was his reply.

b.

[Richard Kranium]

Of course he would say that, as he'd have a snow flakes chance in hell of getting job in Oz, such arrogance, typical of that ilk.:sad:

[A. Le Rhone]

Ah....and Richard Cranium's response instantly lowers the tone of an otherwise nice thread, (such a response being typical of that ilk)!

Anyhow, sorry I couldn't make it to the gathering, it would have been fun and sounded like a great get-together.

A nice bunch of folks who were part of three great airlines.

Whilst such events typically aren't 'celebrated' as such, perhaps for the 25th we could make it a really big event - a marquis in Albert Park or something?

[milkybarkid]

Apologies to some if I've just caused this thread too to be binned. Blame it on three glasses of wine.
The problem is not the red wine today but the Kool-Aid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid) we drank years ago

[redned]

What utter nonesense Wiley,it was JR and Virgin who halved pilots wages in Australia

[Wiley]

Someone beat you to it redned. http://www.pprune.org/dg-p-reporting-points/386317-20-years-today.html

See post #3, which I suspect was the reason that thread was binned by the mods.

[redned]

Its a totally valid point in my view,no one else eroded the existing conditions like Virgin did.That opened the door for all the LCCs who operate today to offer what they like.

[MTOW]

I think someone with a less blinkered view might take the turning point a bit further back than that, ned, to the 24th of August 1989, when the union that had won for Australian professional pilots the conditions they enjoyed effectively ceased to exist. (Although it took a while for many of us to recognise that.)

Some might argue that it continued to exist until enough of its members, along with 'blow-ins', mostly (but not only) from abroard, undermined its position by voting with their feet and accepting the individual contracts.

However, I accept that it's useless attempting to debate the issue. Even after 20+ years, it's still too close to the bone for those who stayed out, wghile those who learned all about the duspute from those who returned have a very different view of it.