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Winston Churchill Jnr

Airborne_Again wrote:

After returning home, I wrote a sour letter to the UK CAA, pointing out the safety implications. They wrote an apologetic reply but said that it was the only way they could recoup costs.

Even then, that was pretty much inexcusable as fuel taxes (as now) for avgas were sky high, and we’ve already paid once for the Met Office through other taxes. Being asked to pay again is pretty galling.

Back when internet weather sources weren’t as good as they are now, the Isle of Man Met Office had a special free number for pilots. The USA still has 1-800-WXBRIEF.

Last Edited by alioth at 16 Jun 16:35
Andreas IOM

In the days and age…. I flew my then Cessna 150 to Frankfurt Rhein Main…. lovely airport then, 7 DM landing fee and great experience.

On the way back I found myself face to face with a Pan Am 747 and thought I was in for a real telling off…. turns out that it was the Clipper who went wrong and stuck it’s nose into the passage to the then GAC. They needed a truck to push him back, but once his engines had been shut down, I was waved past under it’s wing. If memory serves it was Clipper Juan Trippe, N747PA, the first 747 to enter airline service, then under the name “America”

Fond memories.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Flying into Gatwick in a light GA aircraft was easily done in the 1970’ties and I used to do it frequently. The landing fee was 25p or free if you were clearing customs or had a Red Card – where you paid a modest annual fee which covered all landings at most places except IIRC Heathrow. Ah for the old days ……..

EGNC, United Kingdom

When I learned in 1981, the weather and notams were to be found pinned on a noticeboard in the tower, sheets torn off the teleprinter.

Took my Dad flying, and showed him the preflight preparations. He had been a “wireless operator” in the RAF in WW2 and told me how much of an improvement it was from having to get everything via morse code…

Flight training is weather cautious but there is literally no “unknown weather” while training: you know exactly what to expect in next 4 hours and even actual weather from previous guy, the only weather mayhem I recall at my school, they sent a student on his solo nav and he went back to land on cross short grass runway instead of the long tarmac runway he departed on

In long time/distance flying trips and tigh schdule one doea get exposed to unkown weather, it does not matter how much one is skilled or equipped, it will always bite simply because of the lack of planing, far more easier to fly in bad weather by choice rather than forced to

The weather scenario described in that trip is not even “unkown weather”, if you take 50kts winds against the Alps peaks at 12kft for sure you would get spots of waves & rotors with 100kts speed gain or speed loss and 10kfpm updrafts or downdrafts up to 24kft altitudes, no need to have sophisticated weather forcasts it is likely to be NoGo unless one can fly FL250 (even without adding warm fronts with low stratus and extended freezing IMC ), turns out they were far more lucky than one can expect on that trip what would have been the plan if one engine failed?

Last Edited by Ibra at 05 Jun 22:58
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

When I was young, I came with my dad to an office with an antique computer that printed notams and talked to a nice person giving us a weather chart. But the few words he/she told you were worth so much more than the chart. They knew the weather just by looking at it.

Now we have MB of data but frankly, I don’t really know what to expect when I depart in non-cavok conditions.
My dream would be a METAR chart with a METAR every 5 km everywhere

Flight training is really more weather-cautious than it was before.

LFOU, France

Peter wrote:

Or which countries have a tax-compliant (or really wealthy) population which supports a heavy taxpayer subsidy to certain areas

At that time all aircraft in Sweden paid enroute charges, regardless of MTOM. For light aircraft it was a flat yearly fee.

And frankly, I prefer that system to the system in place in the UK at the time (1991). I made a stopover at Old Sarum. When it was time to go on, I asked how I could get in touch with MET and was directed to a phone booth. The MET phone number at the time was a “premium” number at extra high cost. That could have been ok from an ordinary phone, but not from a payphone. In fact it cost so much that it was physically impossible for me to insert even the largest domination coins fast enough to keep up. So I never got a weather briefing. I asked the locals how they did it and they said they called the destination and asked what the weather looked like. Then they listened to VOLMET in the air. I was completely aghast.

After returning home, I wrote a sour letter to the UK CAA, pointing out the safety implications. They wrote an apologetic reply but said that it was the only way they could recoup costs.

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 05 Jun 17:09
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Peter wrote:

The thing which comes through these “adventurer” accounts is that aviation was a lot less anally retarded than it is today, and that fitted perfectly with the scene where info was much harder to publish, and to find.

Like many things today, the increase in nonsense here is driven (created) by the ability to measure activity and produce documentation, with tax bill sometimes attached, versus the value added by doing so. Witness the non-existent ‘increase’ in corporate management efficiency produced by computerization.

It’s a disease that may end up being western society’s next downfall. And as always, aviation leads the way.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 05 Jun 15:12

For the IR, the UK had a “700hr route” mentioned e.g. here. Most “old” UK IR holders that I ever met over the years had followed that route.

Yes I agree that the amazing looking wx graphics we get today probably scare us off doing many perfectly doable flights.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

In the days of Churchill Jr’s exploits above, you could fly with a “can do” attitude and got away with it

Well, flying a Seneca even in those days IFR meant getting the necessary ratings and the IR, which at the time was quite a feat. I did my initial IR in the 1990ties, much more complex than today with home learning e.t.c.

But yes it was more a can do attitude as today, even if some airports even then did not want GA. Airspace was less complex but more restricted (before airspace E a lot of that was what today would be D or C) and information such as NOTAMS had to be more bundled for publication, so short term shots were more difficult to communicate.

Maybe that we had LESS information, particularly in weather, got us to be what today would be considered careless given the flood of model information we have, but was then simply best effort with what we had. If I just reflect what has changed in the 18 years I work at the met office in terms of information available, it is totally staggering. In my experience, quite often we can get dissuaded from flights we would have simply tried in the old days and diverted somewhere if we could not get through by the flood of information we have now, each slightly different or even opposing at times and rarely reflecting the actual conditions to a degree that planning would be better than it was.

The major loss I see is the direct contact with experienced professionals who KNOW what is important for pilots and who know their area and it’s particularities. It still can be done but it is quite expensive and cumbersome to call up several met offices on a longer flight. In doubtful scenarios however, not much can replace the experience of skilled briefers if for nothing else than to put the information we do have into perspective.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland
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