Good old days.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

I see a lot of posts referring to " The good old days "

What time frame does that refer to, the nineties, the eighties , the seventies or earlier than that?

Is it in the days before they put training wheels on the front of airplanes? :E

[ShyTorque]

All I can say is that nostalgia's not as good as it used to be.

[megan]

It's when engines smoked, coughed and farted. None of your Gen ??? whining.when you pressed the starter - except for the lovely whine of an inertia starter that is. Something you have a great deal of experience with Chuck (the smoking, coughing and farting engines part I mean). :ok:

[flyprincess]

When cigars and FAs were up front, a pilot made CA at the legacy carrier after a couple of years, CA salary could buy a brand new Cadillac every month, the meal choice was prime rib & lobster or some French chicken dish, the pax we're classy, FC really was FIRST class, and the flight crew was NEVER seated in coach!

[ChickenHouse]

"The good old days" timeframe is easy - so young that there are survivors, so old that only a very few opponents could correct bull**** statements. As my old science teacher told on his 100th birthday: "I am right, because everybody else attending my story is dead".

[Rocket2]

When you or your lacky spent more time cleaning the spent oil off the airframe than you did flying it :{

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Here in UK at least the 'golden years' for me were from first flying in the late '70s up until probably about the turn of the century. It was just so much more free and lacking over-legislation back then.

The many, many increases in bureaucratic ruling and security and elfin safety and increase in reliance on the radio (some of today's GA pilots think the radio a primary flight control) and concentration on GA as a training ground for commercial rather than a fun thing to do in its own right has been death by a thousand cuts.

Also everyone has a video camera in their pocket now (on their phone), so those beat-up fun flights and impromptu fly-bys at a strip have a good chance these days of featuring on YouTube with the inevitable consequences.

It's quite simply not the fun it once was. And I suspect that it was even more fun prior to my 'golden years'.

[RedhillPhil]

This year is the good old days of thirty years hence.

[Camargue]

good old days, when I started flying in 1988

in the early 90's the closest dwelling to 26 on the private strip I used was 3 miles straight down the centre line with nothing a 1000m either side. All approaches to 26 made very good use of the 500 ft rule

if I still flew there today what with all the camera's phones etc I don't think I'd dare skim over the tree tops at 135kt...

I have my chart from 1990 somewhere.... I should imagine one from the 1970s would be even more depressing to look at!

[Crash one]

In the early 50s our school was on the top of a hill at the edge of the village. A low flyby of two Spitfires disrupting the class enraged our headmaster, a Quaker, he telephoned Tangmere to complain. Next day we got the best air display you could wish for! Today none of it would happen. Sonic bangs were common, now they have people crying in terror.
We could walk home from a village hall dance at midnight with no worries, girls included could walk miles home along country lanes by themselves!
ATC summer camps, gliding, with proper keen instructors. Model aircraft that required a bit of skill to build. Learned a lot in them days.
Good old days, yes they were.

[ShyTorque]

Ah, yes...bring back the "good old days". I remember trying to fly under so-called "VFR" around the LFAs in choking smog after the farmers had been burning corn stubble for weeks, followed by thousands of coal fires being lit up.

British Rail, British Leyland, power workers and the dustmen; more often on strike than working.

Not to mention the added bonus of rickets, TB, polio. :E

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Rickets? Polio? Lots of domestic coal fires? Crikey Shy, didn't have you down as that old! ;)

[Big Pistons Forever]

The Good Old Days: When sex was safe and flying was dangerous

[Maoraigh1]

With respect to flying - now. When I can fly my Group-owned aircraft any time I want to, subject to the weather. Or maybe next year, if Permit aircraft can fly at night.

[maxred]

Aeromaritime Super Constellations.
Spantax DC-7.
British Air Ferries Bristol 170
Argosys, Vanguards, Viscounts.
BAC1-11
Coronado

Super VC-10
Douglas DC-8-73
Boeing 707

The nostalgia of it all, none of

6' fences around GA airfields
Security codes
25 G4S, security, "persons".
Lo Co
Holidays of the packaged kind.
Endless barriers to travel in extremely uncomfortable aeroplanes.

Yes, there was a day when it was all very beautiful, still is, if you can hark back and reminisce to the way it was.....

[ShyTorque]

Rickets? Polio? Lots of domestic coal fires? Crikey Shy, didn't have you down as that old!

I used to have to make the coal fire every day. It wasn't easy digging up the coal, what with the rickets and all that. But thankfully never got desperate enough to own a BL car... ;)

[Old skool Alex]

The time when men were men, and pansies were flowers.

[Frightened nose gear]

Im proud to say my grandad was chief fire officer at croydon airfield during the war and as a young kid (well after the war) i used to see searchlight practice at croydon before it closed in around 56.

[Flyingmac]

I think the good old days ended about the same time they stopped fitting ashtrays in cockpits.:(

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

But thankfully never got desperate enough to own a BL car...

Don't tar them all with the 'Allegro / Marina / Montego / Princess' brush. I had a couple of Triumph Spitfires in me yoof - great fun! Far better car than the awful VW Beetle that preceded them.

Those were the days - off to Barton with the top down, jump into the Chippy (no 6 foot security fences or gates then) and go flying. Beat up Southport beach maybe, or go chasing the sheep over the moors. And often even without a radio in the aeroplane. :eek:

Happy days!

[pasir]

When Daks and Ju52's were lined up in KLM SABENA Swissair AIRFANCE livery on the apron at Croydon. KLM pilots wore part USAAF uniform,KLM air hostess's were buying up all the coffee they could carry back to Amsterdam, KLM air traffic staff got around the airfield in Willys Jeeps. and an office junior (self) could be sitting next to airline pilots at the long bar in the airport canteen.