TWA TriStar card deck (passed on the Convair deck). But I got a local pilot’s leather flight bag from 1960s into 70s. Inside it was chock full of goodies. Kneeboard with red light, Whiz Wheel with instruction book, flight plan cards (?) from local airports in 1961 to long, multi-leg trips into the 70s, hold templates, low altitude sectional charts, approach plates, notes, and other stuff including earplugs. It’s like opening a time capsule. Glad to give it a good home, and it will no doubt find its way into my simulated world.

I have two of those. One aluminum.  The other was made of waxed or otherwise coated posterboard-like material.  Both were military issues.  I used the aluminum one up through my ATP: Flight Assignment days, though for simulator pre-flight planning it was gradually replaced over the years by my progress with Visicalc, Multiplan, and then Excel.  Humm.  Visicalc and Muiltiplan?  Speaking of antiques....

Edited March 15, 20215 yr by fppilot

I had the same aluminum computer the leather holder, loaned to a student of mine but he never returned it. I still have my original leather Jeppesen approach plate binder that came with your name engraved on the cover. I will never forget another instructor throwing it around the room a few times claiming it was to break it in and make it look like it had actually seen some use. Much to the amusement of the others in attendance. They were stiff as a board when new but over the years developed that I soft dog eared feel. I miss the those days.

Edited March 15, 20215 yr by CW46

I started flying in the mid 1970s and retired in 2016. Used one of those my entire career though for the last 20 years I used a smaller one that fit in my shirt pocket. Never ran out of batteries, lol.

Poignant to find all those flight plans, including a 1960 training flight—KMDH-KMWA—I did four decades later. He got around as the years went on—Meigs, Shreveport... Everything waiting to tell their stories, sitting in an antique store in a battered dust-covered monogrammed leather bag high on a shelf that I’m sure nobody had even looked at in years. (Marked $185, got it for $120.) Notes on “how to contact approach” written in small, neat handwriting on a notecard... I haven’t researched his jaunty “orange, blue and white” airplane yet. I bet he was some local dentist or doctor, maybe a lawyer, with a private plane. Time also flies.

14 hours ago, fppilot said:

Speaking of antiques....

I think I can speak AS an antique now. Won’t be long before bits of my personal history will be gathering dust somewhere. I hope someone shows a bit of fraternal kindness to it.

9 hours ago, Tim_Capps said:

I think I can speak AS an antique now. Won’t be long before bits of my personal history will be gathering dust somewhere. I hope someone shows a bit of fraternal kindness to it.

I hear you. Turn 68 this year. I realize this is quite a bit younger than some here.

To complete my contribution here, I can say that the pilot who used all these things was vice-president of Norge Washing in Herrin, Illinois, a division of Maytag. The meticulous notes and records he left reflect a precise mind, so it is not surprising to learn that he held the original patents to the first refrigerator automatic ice maker. He lived to the age of 91, and died in 2007. The 1970 Piper Cherokee that he made so many flights is still flying. It’s current home is South Dakota.

23 hours ago, dbw1 said:

 

I started flying in the mid 1970s and retired in 2016. Used one of those my entire career though for the last 20 years I used a smaller one that fit in my shirt pocket.

 

I actually started working the wheels to loosen them up. Everything is in perfect condition. But a baboon would have made as much sense out of the thing, so you have my admiration. I am trying to get the knee board open without breaking it, but so far I can’t find any catch or slide. I have the whiz wheel (and hold calculators) and sectional charts and approach plates. (I even have an IFR “hood” although it’s really just one that folds and fits in your shirt pocket).

I think I am going to mothball the L1011 for a while and get back to basics. As a student pilot I realized I was a natural rudder and stick guy, but lacked the brain of a pilot. Just like I’m a good guitar player, but can’t understand theory or even name more than three chords with confidence. Never learned my multiplication table.

First time I flew to a neighboring airport as a student, I did know up from down, but that’s all. My mind could not correlate the runway numbers to what I could see on the ground, let alone form the mental 3D model of the correct approach to the assigned. My brain just froze. (Talked in by my instructor, I made a good landing on a runway apparently laid over an ancient burial mound, it was that humped—another “instructor’s surprise.” I had no idea all runways weren’t as flat as my home airport’s.)

I’m good at taking tests. I could have gotten my license. That would have been a death sentence for me and any passengers one day. Thank God for a benign heart condition that complicated the medical.

I don’t think Carl Knerr will mind me playing with his stuff. He filed one flight plan with a Meigs arrival at 10:26. Actual was 10:30. I have everything he had to do that—except a brain that can invent automatic ice makers and navigate.

That’s why I wisely became a criminal defense lawyer. Over 20 death penalty cases and never lost a client.  A whiz wheel? That terrifies me.

Wonderful find, both the bag and the interesting true story to go with it.