You know you're getting old when......
 

- an aircraft you've flown is now a gate guardian
- a picture of your crew is in a museum
- your local Air Cadet unit has SNCOs that weren't born when you joined

Where does the time go?

Old....when you remember Coffee Grinder ADF's combined with VOR's that had the OBS on the Radio itself.

You know how to use a Loop Switch on an ADF.

You know which way to turn while tracking an LF Airway.

You flew in a new build DC-3 on its inaugural flight.

Security was a bit of chain with an open hook across the gate.

Your old enough to (legally) be the dad of the guys who are now coming out of training.

Or you are technically old enough to be a grandfather of current serving personnel, and all of the previous mentioned things are true- well except the Dak and the crew photo. Also when there is a thread about Leather Flying Jackets becoming uniform again at 400 quid a pop and that's a tenth of your annual salary, with flying pay, when you got out of the mob.
I'm sure someone will outdo us and be a great-grandfather of...

When you go to the RAF Museum at Cosford, and not only are 5 types represented there aircraft you flew, but those 5 airframes are in your Logbook and one of them is the first aircraft you flew in the RAF!

When you talk of being based at stations that anyone under 25 years old has never heard of.

You work with people who weren't born when you started... :-\

You are getting Old when you remember thinking the UH-1A was cutting edge technology.:{

Your IOT students are retiring as gp capts (or more)

When you got SFA better to do than read every post.

When you flew in a Hastings.

When the mob wasn't run by beancounters and jobsworths.

When you realise that some of the first Lightning pilots are now in their 90's.

When Wg Cmdrs are as old as your son.

When you take your grandkids round one of those living history museums and tell them 'We used to have one of those when I was little, and one of those, and one of'...

When GA flying was £7 an hour :{:{.

When you served for well over a 1/3rd of the RAF's entire history!

.. The Drilling Engineer lecturing you, the Radio Operator, about how you should handle helicopters was four years old when you started Air Traffic Control training at Shawbury. And he genuinely thinks QNH is a designer drug.

.. You realise that age and experience have given you the patience to just smile and not throttle the arrogant little waste of skin.

.. Some of the helicopters you use offshore are classed as "old". And they are over ten years younger than you.

.. Every aircraft fleet you served with in the Royal Air Force are now soft drink tins and razor blades and their squadrons are either disbanded or numberplates for something far less than they deserve.

.. You can got to a museum not far from your house to see the front end of the very first Nimrod you flew on as a fourteen year old Air Cadet .. Twenty eight years ago.

.. Your brother passed out at Halton in front of a jet that you last saw on your squadron in RAFG.

.. Your nineteen year old daughter see's a photo of you at your pass out parade, when you were two years younger than she is now, and is genuinely amazed that you had hair back then. Or at all on further questioning.

.. You clean out your Nan's loft to find all your old albums. Said daughter has no idea what an LP is and, on seeing the cover of your copy of Michael Jacksons Thriller, says "That isnt Michael Jackson .. Michael Jackson was white".

.. You know what Betamax was. And it damn well was better than VHS !!

.. You still think of a Snickers as a Marathon and Starburst as Opal Fruits.

.. You can remember a time when the only thing close to a fitness test in the Royal Air Force was measured only by stamina in the bar, binge drinking was a way of life and not a negative social condition, banter was mandatory brutal and damn funny, mission statements were something only NASA produced and your mates from back then, and who shared all the good and bad times with you, still share the mindset you enjoyed and admired so much. And then you realise that maybe being old isn't such a bad thing .. :ok:

Ditto all of the above plus last Christmas, I asked a couple of members of staff in the local W H Smiths where I could find 2014 diary inserts for my filofax, to be met with blank stares and no comprehension whatsoever of what I was on about and what on earth was a 'filofax'. :(

PA, a friend of mine who is in his late sixties uses a Filofax. He attended a French language course last year, and a large number of the other students were Japanese.
This ancient storage and retrieval system bemused them until they saw that he could find the relevant info before they had scrolled and tapped through their iPads.

Old?
 

Following on from Post #5.

Called in to Cosford Museum on Tuesday and discovered 10 types that are in my logbooks, 4 actual airframes flown and 1 which I had even delivered to the Museum.
Bl****y heck! I'm old.

On my last tour as an OCU instructor, somewhat chastened to find students who had less years than I had seniority as a Sqn Ldr (to be fair, I was 57).

You know that you are getting old when you stop fancying the WRAF who you lusted after just before you retired!

When your attestation date was as close to the outbreak of the First World War as it is to today's date :(

When you took part in the Royal Tournament that celebrated the 1st 50 years of the RAF, and we are only 4 years away from the service centenary.

When the very boyish client who commissions you to carry out some architectural design work has a wing commander's grow bag upstairs and it wasnt his dad's.

When you have been out longer than you were in.

When you can remember how to service a GPI 6 but you cant remember which client you spoke to yesterday. Even worse, you dont care........

That much? £1/10s :p

Or the Hiller 12E

Or that one of your PPL instructors flew Camels. In the Great War.

Or you still remember how to don a starched collar and tie as part of your No 5s.

Or the disgust from the senior officers when collar attached shirts were introduced for normal wear.

And that they weren't allowed to be worn when visiting 'other ships' :=

And recall the original two piece goonsuits. And Mk 1 bone domes.

And aircrew issue string vests: made from string.

You know your an old Techy if you know what a Fescalised (spelling?) Portion is & where it can be found :eek:

getting old !
 

Yep ! I do it's the shiny bit on for example an undercarriage the slidy bit !, sorry to spoil the party but I have been out many years longer than I was in & do remember the 50th anniversary just hope I live long enough to see the 100th, PH.

When the last Marathon you finished, was before they were rebranded as Snickers

True Bearing, True Bearing

Did I write this?!? I think every generation thinks they had it best, and that may be true. But surely the 80's and early 90's were the last of the 'carefree' days...

I agree, being old isn't such a bad thing. At least we can take to our graves experiences that todays kids will never get.

And that is probably our fault!

And you still remember the "That's Life" programme with Esther Rantzen disproving the "A Fist Full of Peanuts in Every Bar" advertising jingle, thus at a stroke making the company withdraw the advert.

That will be me then !!!

Philrigger

When you suddenly remember things like:

Imps
Jubblies
Fruit Polo's
Zubes
Izal toilet paper

and it brings a tear to the eye..... just like the toilet paper used to...

You know when you are old when...
 

Your last Station Commander wasn't even born until 8 months after you joined the RAF!


3p:)

When you ask, what happened to camouflage?

The JENGO giving you a rollicking about how to live your life was 7 years old when you joined the raf.

Esther Rantzen - hmm - may have started "Childline" but I really would put her at the back of the queue for oxygen

... You remember you controlled Meteors on your first 2 airfield tours as an ATCO.

... You never even heard of today's Air Marshals until they were one ;)

You used to fly with the current CAS when he was a Flying Officer and you were showing him how to operate in NI

When not one of the types you worked on is flying and the only place you can see one is in a museum or scrapyard.

... And you remember the first time you bought sweets without having to use a Ration Book :)

You've heard of ACR7 and know what a QGH is...

When your 21 year old son says ... "what's that" ... when you show him a vinyl record :ugh: