A Blast From The Past!
 

As it is the last day of the Year and we start another tomorrow.....most of us take a moment to contemplate the past year and consider what the new one might hold.

When I opened pprune a few minutes ago.....an old acquaintance had left a PM for me to read.

I met him at Duxford when I was there flying the Huey owned by Phil Connolly.

At some point in a weak moment I allowed this young fellow to sit in the pilot seat of the Huey.

I very much regret that now.....as in his PM he informed me of the approaching likelihood of his becoming a licensed helicopter pilot.

He remarked of the impact of sitting in the Huey seat had on him and strengthening his desire to become a helicopter pilot one day.

I suppose I played an unknowing role in spreading the illness most of us have suffered....wanting to fly.

I very much wish him well in his flying and am humbled to receive such a compliment as was made by his taking time to catch up with me all these years later.

I look back at my flying career and as I have remarked many times in the past....if I ever write a book it will be about the people I have met and what a treasure so many of them are to me.

One of my regrets is I treated my Log Book as a sterile place to document flight hours and aircraft types.....and did not add photos, and journal entries to more fully describe each flight and event related to those days.

I have been very fortunate in been honored to know some very good folks over the years.

Perhaps I shall write that book one day....but will have to leave a few chapters out to protect the guilty.

Happy New Year to all....and especially to our fledgling aviator for reminding me of why we should all be ambassadors for our trade and industry.

I have the same regrets with respect to my logbooks. It would be interesting to read through my own thoughts on the particular day of some of my adventures over the years. I remember many, but I often wonder if my memories are accurate. It would be fun to see, in my own hand, what my impressions were then.

Should be a boat ride available....might even catch a fish or two.

SASless,I wish you a happy new year 2019, I don’t even know you but the following;

is a great idea to me so thanks for the idea.

If I ever manage to fly again I will definitely do that. You see you can also make an impact on people by writing on PPRuNe :)

Hope to read your book one day...

Happy New Year to you!

I did make some cryptic remarks when a particular flight or series of flights stood out to me.

In my two combat tours in Vietnam flying Chinooks....I relied upon the US Army flying records for time keeping and did not keep a Log Book at all....and that was a huge mistake.

For instance, If I had done a Logbook as I describe....my war stories would have had a much better basis upon which to embellish.

I started flying gliders some years before helicopters. One of my gliding instructors told me to always write something about the flight in my logbook, even if was just a 5 minute circuit(not unusual in a glider on a poor day). I did that and carried it on throughout my flying career.

SASless,
That was a really well written thread starter, no doubt we all have “if only” moments in our life’s! Looking forward to the book!

Good luck with your fishing this year and try to keep away from the sharks and perhaps stop throwing empty beer cans at others!

Happy New Year to you and all on Pprune and stay safe.

These days my logbooks are used more often as diary guides, especially following a Christmas gift of a slide/negative scanner where I'm often stumped for the date of a photo until I find the event in my logbook. I was encouraged to add not only descriptions of my flights but also the occasional photo into my logbooks when RN, and it has served me well.

I'd encourage any other aviator to do the same, even if it means printing a digital image to add to the logbook.

Something to be said for analogue records in this digital age :ok:

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I had to show my log books to the UK CAA a number of years ago, very nice lady handed them back to me saying: "Here's your photo albums!" I keep all sorts of stuff in mine because my rotary instructor suggested it as like SAS his were just the bland records of flying and had none of the interesting stuff.

Jolly good idea and made a start with a course photo - somewhat short-lived when the Flt Cdr returned it from signing the monthly summary with "This is an OFFICIAL Air Ministry document, NOT a bloody photo album!!" A good idea though - in more enlightened environments!

I reflect with pleasure, tinged with an understandable degree of sadness, what outstandingly good use Danny42C clearly made of his logbooks - a prime example of exactly what John says.

Jack

I was told similar. Hence the details in my RAF logbooks, apart from an occasional place name, consist mainly of just exercise and task numbers. I didn't even write anything about the very cold, wet and windy night during basic jet training that my QFI and I had very good reason to find ourselves going through the ejection seat drills somewhere over Yorkshire. Thankfully we didn't quite have to carry out the final action, although I did keep a hand near the lower seat handle for what seemed quite some while on our way back to base. The one photo I do have in Vol 1 (I'm now on logbook Vol 7) is of a member of the Royal family awarding me my "wings" badge. Vol 2 has an official photo of a squadron exchange and that's it.

Remember to "Back Up" all those files....in mulitple safe places so that even the Back Up File stash being lost will not result in the loss of everything.

One set of Archived Data should be safely stored at a remote location to ensure there is at least one survivor of a disaster.

Hmm...my logbooks will be readable(if they are not physically destroyed) for many, many years to come. I started doing computer based backups 20 odd years ago, for just that eventuality.

Those backups are now unreadable due me changing(over the years) computers, operating systems and software. Will the filetypes of logbook software be readable in years to come, or will you be able to connect the device that you used to a future computer?

Paper is the only storage medium that can be read hundreds of years after it was written. Think 5.25 floppies, 3.5 floppies(some won't even know what they are) and DVDs(on their way out).

Funny that the 3.5" discs were still call floppies, despite being in a rigid case. My 7" floppy is still useful after all these years.

The issue with those old devices was media, types and formats changed and their longevity was limited.
Modern tech doesn't rely on any specific media or format and is more often than not now based in the cloud so it transcends technology changes and age.
What's on your phone, moves to your next phone and so on with copies kept in various places.
While less interesting than an old paper book it will be more coffee and tea resistant.

We always called them stiffies :}

Maybe, maybe not. Try spilling liquid on a laptop keyboard.