[Rob P V2.0]

After something like 22 years it ends, not with a flounce, not with a ban, but with a final post to sum up what has been a blast.

The FLYER List is probably unknown to the majority now active on here, but it was an email group of pilots back in the days of dial-up and squawking modems. If you don't understand, don't worry. You really don't need to know, neither are scheduled for a return any time soon. I tried to leave that too, possibly being the first, of many, to use Douglas Adams as the source for the thread title.

One notable was determined to stop me, and succeeded. He and his family are close friiends to this day. The List was replaced by the Forum when somebody invented HTML, whatever that is. I have been here ever since Day One in my original and V2.0 guise. The change of identity was to preserve Keef's position as all-time top poster, an attempt that failed due to some forum glitch that confiscated some of his posts. Sorry Keef.

Over that time my main contribution has been thread drift and intended comedic posts. You will all have to get used to their absence.

It has been great. It is difficult to cover all the people who have made my time here fascinating. If I mention a couple, please will all the others not get upset?

I have to single out my Italian Flying Brother, African Eagle. His off the wall proposal of an Italian Raduno in 2002 prompted me to spend a fortnight crawling the Shiny Colt (The name a legacy of my last attempt to leave the community) to well south of Rome. Still the longest trip I have ever flown and one that will live in my memory, for ever. Ciao Riccardo

There's the guys that have left us. Amongst them Keef, a couple of Daves, Harry, Chris N, WKW. Far too many all told, but that's the way of things. Hatz, the man with over a hundred aircraft owned, one of the real old characters of aviation and now in a really bad place.

Events? Well there was taking this skinny, aircraft mad kid to the Barra Beach Landing, which became the Benpeculiar Macaroni Pie tragedy. Whatever happened to that young lad from Kent? Did he become a Bush Pilot as intended?

The Sky Gods Sports And Cassic Car Club flowered briefly and led to about four meet-ups.

Bossman's FLYER Fly-ins? I remember the Enstone one well. We did get through a lot of alcohol that night.
Friends? Lots. Almost my entire social circle are pilots. You know who you are, I won't namecheck you all.

Aeroplanes? All those Pipers back then, including the plucky little Tomahawk that kept this PPL student alive when he elected to fly into a snowstorm on his QXC, and the Warrior that took me across the Channel for the very first time on a fly-out. No 'Cross Channel Checks' in those days.

The Yak. Brief but amazing.

The Shiny Colt, an unique aircraft and group. Often known as a gentlemen's drinking club with an aeroplane.

The RV-4 that plummeted and latterly the RV-6 (shares still available)

I am not going to hang around here, another was-pilot clinging on to past glories, telling the same old stories, posting one-liners. There's enough already. Kanga is excused for his erudition and for the JAM guerrilla marketing.

To close. One day is thestandout.

I was lucky enough to be the pilot chosen to give a flight to a terminally ill teenage girl. In her 'last wishes' box was a request to 'Fly a plane'. Obviously this couldn't happen, but her carers and I were eventually in touch thanks to the Forum and, as you can guess, she got plenty of stick time. Her dream did come true. I will always recall her laughing as we fell out of the top of the loop she asked for, then through the two more successful figures that followed.

Bye for now. Be good. Don't do anything I wouldn't.

Rob P V2.0 and Rob P

You won't be rid of me entirely. The H&A Forum is such a great resource I reserve the right to pop up asking idiot questions and begging for IT help. And, of course, the shares for sale thread, until my share in the Black Six moves on.