Disasters I Nearly Met
Jim Davis has a passion for instructing. He has been training civil and military pilots, in the air and on the ground for 50 years. His other passion is writing, which he studied at Curtin University in Perth. You can see, and buy, his two pilot text books PPL and Flight Tests at www.jimdavis.com.au
Ā pilot’s logbook is far more that just a record of dates, times, places and flights; it is also a history of a pilot’s flying career and a chronicle of the lessons learnt that makes them the aviator they are today. Jim Davis takes a look back through his own logbooks, and records the incidents that have shaped his approach to flying.
I think I am a reasonably tech sort of guy, but every now and then something strange happens. And it’s always when a clunky Bill Gates adding machine infests its electronic tentacles into my smooth and orderly world of Apple Mac.
I was typing contentedly on my MacBook Air when the phone rang. No, silly, I don’t have to pick it up – I just dispatch the cursor to the top of the screen and click the little green phone icon and what happens? The screen fills with a lady in bed. It’s my long time friend, Karen, and she is very happy to chat with me. She doesn’t seem to be in the least surprised by my sudden intrusion into her boudoir. She happily admits she doesn’t understand most of the buttons on her phone.
“Good morning, Karen, shouldn’t you be up by now?”
“It’s too bloody cold to get up. And what are
