Title: PUMB - PUGB?
Tags: Flying Log Book
Blog Entry: Things are pretty quiet at the moment, its always like this during the last week in July and first couple of weeks of August as the nation takes it's summer holidays. This has meant I`ve found a bit of time to catch up on reading some of those books I`ve bought over the years but never got round to reading or re-reading. In particular I've just finished reading a real gem "Vapour Trails" by Mike Lithgow. Mike Lithgow was a test pilot for Vickers Armstrongs in the 1950's, and Vapour Trails is an anthology featuring true stories of incidents as recollected by fellow test pilots of the era. It's worth mentioning that test pilots of the 1950's were household names, many had remarkable service careers and most were involved in the race to get their companies jet aircraft into service with the military or airlines. That so many lived to tell the tale is remarkable, such is the price of progress. As I enjoyed the book I was much struck by a comment from one contributor who was lamenting the fact that when he revisited his long forgotten flying log books to research his article he found very little comment in the remarks column to help him recall events. In particular he recalls an incident in 1941 where he was bounced by a ME109 over the English Channel and suffered amongst other things a damaged engine, his luck didn`t quite hold out and the engine siezed before he reach an airfield. Too low to bale out he force landed, suffering nothing more than a few bruises and a very bent Spitfire. Nowadays this might be enough of an event for many to write a book! - Surely this would merit a few lines in his flying log book to mark the occasion - not a bit of it he ruefully admits in the remarks column he simply added the letters FL! (Forced Landing) I thought it might be fun to have a look through my own log books and see what I had written in the reamrks column and was not too surprised to see I used a similar code in the remarks column.... My own flying career has been quite unremarkable, and other than records of tests etc I only had one entry of note during my training.. circa 30 hrs alongside the record for a solo cross country navex I added GL. I can`t remember the occasion but a flight time of 1.20 rather than 1.00 probably tells the story.... I Got Lost! in retrospect I`m amazed at how reliable the aircraft have been and how I managed to get away with any mistakes I may have made along the way.... for example 4000 hrs instructing in Pipers finest and hardly a comment to be found alongside the usual flight exercise info.... but the odd one or two of these along the way made me smile.... alongside the students name the letters- PUMB - This I do remember was ("Puked Up Missed Bag") - PUGB was (Puked Up Got Bag) of course. The occasion where I managed to break the banner tow line through snagging it in the grass when picking up a banner simply warranted BL (Broke Line) For the sake of history I omitted to mention the fact that this act of incompetence nearly stalled the aircraft in front of 30,000 people watching. (The banner said "Welcome - Flying Displays Start In 10 Minutes.") In a similar number of hours flying the line all I could come up with in the way of remarks was a sprinking of LS's (Late ATC Slot) - BC (B****y Cold) .. Jetstream's don`t have APU's and preparing for the first flight of the day after a hard frosty night I must have though miserable enough to warrant a comment... EFD, was one I do remember, it was the only occasion I had to take issue with Pratt and Whitney over their sticker on the engine. This PT6 wasn`t a reliable one... No big deal in a Shorts 360 so all this warranted was EFD (Engine Failure Diverted).... After those few I find stopped making any remarks at all! - Why I don`t know... just page after page of places and times.... I was lucky nothing much ever I happened I guess. I`d be fascinated to know what others write in their Log Books... nothing at all, brief mention or a story! Make a comment here and tell us about your Log Book entries. Cheers Dave Please Visit My Iviation Group "Iconic Aviation Ads" http://iviation.com/groups/view/id_6/title_iconic-aviation-ads/
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