LOL!!
Many thanks - this had me giggling!:p

Hmmm.....might even be worth somebodys while creating a web site which attempts to source Transair catalog items in regular high street shops and/or UK-based online retail sites and publishes the results in a searchable database. Prospective purchaser types in Transair stock code, e.g '6851E' which takes you to the relevant page on the Transair site and displays a (cheaper) alternative wherever possible.

Wonder how long it would be before they started sending cease & desist letters? :}

You could, of course, take the charitable option and assume Transair did this to save pilots money by pointing out that we can buy some of our stuff from its marine catalogue...!

Tim

30cm long plastic tube for checking fuel level on a C152: £11.99 from your nearest pilot store.
30cm long piece of wooden dowling (for same): 50p from your nearest hardware shop.
Should I get CAA approval? :)

Dont you just love it when someone comes out with something so obvious you just couldn't see it. "A piece of wooden dowl" what a fantastically simple idea, thanks G SXTY - anyone want a bit of expensive plastic :-)

I'm sure I cannot be the only one, but its amazing the amount of kit you buy because it looked nice and shiny in the catalogue, and you didn't even think of looking for an alternative because you just had to have it !

Well this thread has certainly opened my eyes a lot, the annoying thing is I normally look around on the internet for the better deals on most things (sad I know) but I have a flying bag (yes - I paid a heavy premium on that too :sad: ) full of kit (well some of it) that could have been sourced elsewhere.

Nevermind, I suppose it all pans into insignificance the second your trusty steed fires up and starts guzzling the avgas.

Cheers

Pull Back

Donations gratefully received . . . ;)

The shop that never has a sale!!

And don't buy any of that flight planning cr*p such as 'circuit planners' and all that nonsense. If you can obviously buy it somewhere else then do so (watches, timers, 'comedy items', etc).

Kneeboards spring to mind as another great rip-off. Take a piece of board, and a paper grip, cover with aviation related information such as morse code, and hey presto! up to 30 quid!

How about torches for up to 35 pounds. I got one for 3 pounds from my local petrol station, including batteries. Although it was sh*t mind you and did not last long.

My favourite though has always been the partial panel stickies. These are basically round post it notes, and cost 5 quid for 100.

Most reference materials required for flying can be found for free on the web.

My flying instructor always urged me to buy a stopwatch, and I could never understand why when there was one stuck to my wrist (along with a flight computer, but that's a bit small really). Is there actually any need for a proper stopwatch?

I got my flight bag from an outlet store for £9, my DCs are from the US, so I saved a fair bit on them, haven't done my night rating yet but when I do i've got a maglite at home. The kneeboard was ordered from the States, but that's quite a nice bit of kit - not one of those crappy clipboard and shoelace affairs.

GBM :)

Dead reckoning, but that is a dying art. The sort of thing you do when you start because you have to, then after passing your private you think it's a waste of time and fancy gizmos are the way to go, then if you stay around long enough you realise fancy gizmos are boring so go back to stopwatch again.

Once you start instrument flying in anger it's nice to have a big digital kitchen timer on your yoke. Note I said kitchen timer which you can buy at your local massive hypermarket for a fraction of the price of what you will pay at the airport for a stopwatch.