Oh btw, I once visited a weather station somwhere which shall be unnamed to protect the innocent bastards who do a great job there.
Now this is one station, active since probably the 1890ties. It consists of the observation platform high up the light house, a room below which houses the telegraph with which the messages got sent to headquarters, featuring a very reliable piece of equipment including a morse key and a machine featuring a one inch wide paper roll on which incoming and outgoing messages were stenciled into.
That was about 1990. I guess they might have 4G there by now.
In the cellar an archive housing all the paper rolls since the first day is housed. Just in case someone would like to know what the Synop was on the day the Titanic sank. Hopefully someone is still able to read this stuff.
Nothing is as dissuading to perform a closer inspection of what has been done as one mile of dusty folders stacked in an equally dusty and dark room on shelfs which look as they are likely to collapse at the first movement.
I would not be surprised that if somewhere in Southeastern Europe in a very dusty and dark archive there are some stone tablets which hold the original accident report of Icarus.
I vividly recall my attempt to pay a parking fine in Corfu. Took a full day and visits to about 20 offices until one officer finally found the copy of the ticket I had and then sent me to pay the approximately 20 Euros to an office across the town. The filing cabinets I saw during this ordeal looked like they had been started by Homer himself and his Odyssee inspired by the search for a particular piece of parchment written out to someone who accidently left his horse and carriage on the parking space of the city governor or similar. One of those guys said to me: “You know what we really need here? A computer.” To which my not quite correct answer was “I’d start with a vaccum cleaner”. 3 Ouzos later my fine was paid up.
LeSving wrote:
He he. Not exactly.Like this:
@LeSving, I know! :) I’ve actually used those things on old Soviet computers (together with punch tapes, pre-matrix printers).
I was just trying to facetious, as the most common name for the things that no one really reads at some point was “Toilet Times”.
That comes handy for non-graphical NOTAMS 
He he. Not exactly.
Like this:
Peter wrote:
You need dot matrix (or the older golfball type) printers to print multipart forms
That, and I guess to print out a ton of A4 sheets must be hugely impractical. Better to have it on one continuous roll. I guess there are no laser printers for continuous sheets of paper?
You need dot matrix (or the older golfball type) printers to print multipart forms, which are still used in ancient southern European airports for the GENDEC etc.
Multipart is an expensive paper.
dublinpilot wrote:
Regulations about things that should be “common sense” are often very complicated
Yes, like for instance regulations for certified aircraft
There are newer (and vastly better) options. This involves turbines, jet and TP, as well as new airframes for them. The cost is however prohibiting for the vast majority of GA pilots.
The only difference here is the degree of sanitation. In some places people like to clean up the place every now and then, keep it in working order, regardless of the degree of antiqueness. It’s rather funny. A plane made in the 1970s – nice piece of equipment. Early 2000 office inventory – WTF !!!
Funny thing about dot matrix printers. A couple of weeks ago the check in at a gate at Gardermoen didn’t work. The scanners wouldn’t accept people’s tickets. The lady behind the desk was getting increasingly desperate. A couple of other people came, things eventually got sorted out. But not after a dot matrix printer behind the desk had spewed out pages and pages, of I guess something. “important” The lady studied it for a while. Seems like dot matrix printers are an essential airport thing
I think the Avinor airports are nice enough for a GA pilot. You will be picked up by an Avinor car, to and from your plane, and the people are generally nice. There isn’t much stuff there however, except the usual things outside security areas. A coffee bar or something All the planning things are expected to be done online through IPPC regardless. On private strips there is nothing. The entire admin consists of a mail box on a wall, at most. You could get lucky and arrive at a time for waffles and coffee in the local club house though
One notable aspect of this is that the employees willing to work in this scene can be recruited only from a narrow band of people.
I am not talking about needing to spend 10k on curtains to attract “top bank staff talent”, or even to attract most young people today (who can get a job in a bank type office where they have spent 10k on curtains) but nowadays the recruitment aspect will be pretty hard. It does tend to explain why the people working there tend to be pretty hard cases.
It’s a world which time forgot
It is also a world where lazy people can survive for ever. That is another aspect of a rule-bound environment. Lazy people love it.
