Reason you take up flying?

[Pace]

there have been a spate of posts from people saying they have no confidence after 100 hours their instructor questions whether they should take up something else?
We then have posts on how little Jimmy went solo at 6 hours while Fred has flown 60 hours and still not gone solo.
Some seem as happy in the air as ducks in water some are frankly scared stiff.

What brought you to taking up flying? Was it a long held passion? a Top gun man thing ? just a whim?

I know when I started flying over 30 years ago I was fully focused on Car racing. i was sponsored and had visions of being the next world formula one champion.
i lost the sponsor, attempted to continue without and quickly realised that my mission was futile.

i packed it in and with a love of speed and controlling machinery decided to learn to fly but not with a PPL in mind but purely to Solo so I could tell myself I had flown a circuit on my own. As it was I continued to PPL and beyond finding it hard sometimes to justify the cost

What attracted you to learning to fly? Was it for the right reasons or maybe in some cases the wrong reasons ? I know in my situation there were times where I lost the motivation and had to have a new goal in flying and in those times nearly chucked it in. The same with especially the loss of two very close fiends in flying accidents where again I nearly chucked it in but then I am still here) what has driven you ?

Pace

[Flyingmac]

Bird puller. It took 20 years for it to work on the right one, and cost a packet.

[KNIEVEL77]

When I was a kid I either wanted to work in TV or be a pilot.
I now work in TV and started to embark on my PPL but have to admit that I struggle with being 2,500 ft up in the air in the tiny Robinson R22 although I'm told that exposure therapy is the way forward and the more I get up there the more relaxed I will become.
And don't talk to me about steep banking..........

[Baikonour]

As long as I can remember I wanted to fly. My youth was taken up by reading about aeroplanes and building small models in plastic and covered wood. Still love the smell of dope :-) I graduated to bigger models and fitting them with RC (I also built RC cars, boats and skidoos) but never found an RC club close to me and crashed a few models on my own before getting any hang of it.

I then saw a film where the main protagonist worked for a company which manufactured large turbofans. The film was not at all about aviation, but the image of that finely engineered piece of kit pushed me into wanting to do an aeronautical engineering degree, which was followed by a related degree afterwards.
Shortly after completing those, I got a job in a related industry and swayed further away from aviation over the years. But I still get to use my engineering skills from time to time and have colleagues who are closer to aviation than I am.

The occasional flight with friends who fly gliders or one who is on a national aerobatic team have always kept me wanting to do a PPL but I've also always been aware of the fact that 'it serves no purpose'. With real life and other commitments, actually getting the license seemed a bit pointless.

2 years ago my mother-in-law bought me a biography of Bert Hinkler and that was the final straw which made me decide to go ahead and get my license, which I finally got earlier this year. It is of course the best thing I ever did, but I'm not really sure I regret not doing it earlier. I am now at a stage I can enjoy it and have the time and resources to do so, which I might not have had earlier.

What I enjoy most about flying is actually handling the controls and working with the aircraft. I love blustery days with a good crosswind and turbulence when you really have to work to stay straight and level and touch down smoothly. I hate the 2 seconds of the take-off run when she wants to fly and is 'on her toes' but not yet in the air - when she's neither on the ground nor flying. I love the hold-off as she settles after a good trip away.
I also love good, clean, efficient RT - the simplicity and structure of it appeals to the engineer in me.

And of course the views from the air. The shades of brown of a newly ploughed field. The shallows under the water stretching way from a beach and the vistas of mountains on a clear day. The puffy clouds or the walls of a front.

Sigh... must get up today!

B.

[vwdan]

Biography time! It's just always been "for me". As a child I loved my Airfix aircraft, loved books about aircraft and would always look up to the sky. My dad definitely had some substantial influence there as he was always listening to Airband Radio and taking me to airshows.

As an early teenager I already knew my eyesight was too bad to make a career at sitting in the front seat, but I joined Air Cadets in the hopes of fostering a career in the RAF. Air Cadets remains one of the best things I've ever done and it did nothing to quash my love of aviation (Apart from the time I was privileged enough to fly in a Nimrod and spent most of the time chucking up). I could easily write a 101 things I love about airfields, aircraft and aviation - probably starting with the smell of a jet.

But, for various (good and bad) reasons, I never did join and real life got in touch - girls, cars, career, marriage etc and aviation moved away from me.

The year before last I saw an advert for RIAT, decided it had been way to long since I'd watched a Fast Jet take off and booked us in. I suspect that was probably an expensive mistake - we went again last year, and then this year I had a motorcycle ride out to a smaller airshow to see the Vulan. They had a Tutor and a Bulldog there and it just reminded me how much I missed flying and how long it had been since I'd done so.

And that was that, really - I ended up having a day off from work so I drove down to my local flying school and booked a trial lesson. 20 hours later and it's still all I think about all week! Literally everything I imagine and hoped for.

Beyond the physical act of stick and rudder - almost everything about aviation appeals to the engineer in me. I love the theory, I enjoy the utilitarian nature of the cabin and I get a bizarre amount of pleasure in just flicking switches as I do my checks. I think the discipline appeals, too - the desire to remove ambiguity from our actions and radio calls - that appeals a lot to my way of thinking.

Incidentally, the other thing I've enjoyed is suddenly been back around like minded people. I knew I was 'home' when half the flying school dived out of the shed to see a visiting aircraft (I'm not even sure what it was, tbh!)

[pulse1]

I have always been an opportunist and, rather than following some burning ambition, I have fantasised and dreamed of all sorts of things including flying. If a door opens into my dream, I will go through it. My closest friend right through school and beyond was crazy about flying and I just followed along in his wake. We both joined the ATC together, we both went solo in gliders and we both went to RAF Hornchurch to try for a Flying Scholarship. He got one and I didn't. He went on to become a fast jet pilot, sadly no longer with us.

I had seen my opportunity to become a pilot through National Service but I escaped that by 17 days when they cancelled it. So it was on to a technical education and boring job, the next opportunity to fly coming when I moved to Bedford and joined the London Gliding Club where I got up to Bronze C standard.

After another move down to the South coast I found that joining the local ATC Gliding School gave me the opportunity to learn to fly a beautiful Tiger Moth very cheaply. Family reasons and oil prices forced me to stop flying after about 7 years and then, 23 years later, I won £500 worth of flying from the local flying school. Yet another opportunity to get flying again, greatly assisted by Gordon's 40% subsidy through an NVQ, and I have never looked back. Taking another opportunity to buy a share about 10 years ago I have since enjoyed flying beyond my wildest dreams. (Well, perhaps not all of them but there's still time)

[Pace]

i wonder though how many are driven by the wrong reasons? All the posts above are for good solid reason.

I knew a biz jet jockey his dad was a BA captain and somehow I always had the feeling he didn't want to be there although he was a capable pilot with many problems outside flying.

many come into flying for correct reasons but I am sure many of us know some who we wonder why they are doing it to maybe prove something to themselves or others ??

On a different angle I also knew of one CFi who outside the flying club held a very mundane lowly job. Once within the club he changed wore a different hat and was suddenly someone to be respected and admired and frankly a bit of a Hitler and an Ego hence the question what motivated you into flying?

Pace

[localflighteast]

A way to get over my very real fear of flying.
The original plan was to get comfortable enough to be able to sit in the right hand seat while my PPL husband flew. And maybe be able to help him enough to take the controls when he needed his hands to do other tasks.

I took the ground school because the theory interested me. then I planned to take about ten hours of lessons.

Well I had an instructor who obviously had different plans, he treated me like a pilot - to - be who could do this. There was something exhilarating about conquering you deepest fears every lesson, having survived the ordeal for that day!

I became too stubborn to quit!

[effortless]

Wrong reasons, pa was RAF, never saw him but when I did he made it clear that I was going to join up. Mercifully, Betty's flying club sent me home on a medical before I got chopped. Always a mediocre pilot but I loved the "doing" part of it. I'd have been a dreadful RAF officer.

[BEagle]

When I was a small boy, I used to watch the marsh warblers swooping in my mothers undercroft and I remember thinking "Will men ever dare do the same?"

Or rather living within sight, sound and smell of RAF Merryfield!

[er340790]

I was hooked, lined and sinkered from my very first flight in a Chipmunk as a CCF cadet circa 1976. Tragically, a lazy left eye meant I'd never get to fly C-130s from the RAF which, apart from being a milkman, was the only thing I'd ever really wanted to do(!)

So, went into a totally different field and worked all over the world for the intervening 30 years, while continuing to fly privately and build up glider hours.

Then, in 2003, did my first seaplane flight in N. Canada, and fell in love all over again, this time with bush-flying. So much so that I quit my job and moved here! Ended up working and flying all over N. Canada - and FL in Winter.

And.... one job involved working with First Air, who operate 2 Hercs up here. So I did end up getting to experience the pointy end of C-130s after all...

It's a funny old world. Especially if you don't lose sight of your dreams.

[Pace]

Especially if you don't lose sight of your dreams.

That is so so important but I will also add that so often it is fear that stops us making those dreams into reality.
I am not just talking about a passion for aviation but a passion for anything.

One day you wake up and say "if only" and that is probably the saddest phrase in life with so many fears which stop us making those dreams and passions a reality.

The better phrase is "feel the fear and do it anyway" or so many opportunities are lost through fear to be replaced by regrets

Pace

[mary meagher]

My first husband ran off with his secretary, so I had my ears pierced and went for a ride in a glider at Booker, Wycombe Air Park. Both completely out of my comfort zone, having been a housewife and mother for 27 years, wanted to do something crazy and defiant, at the age of 50. It was the glider lifting over the hedge behind the tow plane that enchanted me...it could fly! When we landed after half an hour I said I want to go again.

3,000 hours later.....

[Pace]

Mary

3000 hours is a lot of hours in 10 years 😎

[rnzoli]

Lots of reasons...

1) When I was a kid, the most friendly person in the family was a former MiG-15 pilot

2) My mom and grandmom let me eat a lot of chocolate, they said this is what pilots also eat during long and tiring flights

3) I read "Night Flight" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

After all this, I could not escape.

[piperboy84]

Back in the 90's I owned an Irish Bar in LA, one of my regulars was a guy from Roscommon Ireland who said he was a flight instructor and also moonlighted as charter pilot in a Beech Baron. He said he had a flight the next day taking 4 young women out to a massive spring break party on the Colorado river and invited me along for the ride. I showed up at Santa Monica airport the next day and was told I would be "right seat" whatever that was , I had never been in a light aircraft before. The 4 college age girls arrived wearing next to nothing with T and A showing everywhere. Upon landing and getting into town there was literally thousands of bikini clad hotties running around. I went to the bar and ordered a beer and in walks one of the girls we flew out with about 20 of her mates who all looked like porn stars, she looked over at me and shouted " hey, there's my pilot" one of her friends came over and asked if I was really a pilot, I looked her up and down standing there in her bikini and responded firmly. " Yes, yes I am"

Started flight lesson the following week.

[L'aviateur]

My earliest memories are spending days sat around a small airfield (EGCI) waiting for my parents who had a small business there until the airfield closed. I snagged the occasional circuit and after that was hooked.
Inevitably did the PPL, and did want to go further but cost and market conditions dictated it to be a decision. Now 30 years old my financial commitments far exceed the salary of a pilot precluding me from chasing that pipe dream, but I love to fly and slowly push my boundaries at every opportunity.
Flying has the strange effect of totally clearing my head of all thoughts and stress, perhaps due to the level of concentration.

[mrmum]

Fulfilling my childhood dream I suppose, is the short answer.

However, saying that to your careers teacher in W Cumbria, in the early 80's, when you're from a very working class background doesn't get you far.
So, left school at 16, got a job, worked lots of overtime, nightshifts and weekends, spent it all on flying. Got my PPL and night rating, bought a share in a Cherokee, did the IMCr and group B rating as it was then. Got a class 1, CPL theory with PPSC, finished the hour building, BCPL course at Compton Abbas (lovely place), then eventually ended up doing the flight test with Dai H-H out of Perth. Followed that with an AFI, then FI rating, upgraded my licence to the full 700 hour CPL and did the ME IR, shortly after that I got my examiners ticket.

Somewhere along the path to a RH seat airline job, I realised that I actually quite enjoyed pottering about in light aircraft being an instructor. So, some decades and around 10k hours later, here I am with my own (small) flying school, I really like my life and love what I do. I get up in a morning and look forward to going to work, it's interesting and stimulating, never boring, which is probably down to the wide selection of people who occupy the LH seat and keep trying to kill me
I've no regrets about my flying at all, yes I would be paid more if I'd got the airline job, but most people I know who've done that eventually end up thinking of aviation as the daily grind.
For me, it's still special and that's how I want it to stay.

[RyanLee024]

Fulfilling my childhood dream in short. Whenever I get on a plane I always enjoyed the scenery I can see from above. It's like a constant reminder of how beautiful mother nature can be.

I've always enjoyed watching planes take-off and land at the international airport in my city (Hong Kong).Even though it was an hour's drive to get there I always felt worth it. How I got my license though was a lot of back-and-forth attempts and a lot of opportunities that I tried to take advantage of.

I then kinda forgot about my dreams of being a pilot as I go on through primary and secondary school. It then all came back one day in high school when a university organization offered a PPL(A) ground school course with a two-week practical training in Brisbane Australia for high school students. I brute-forced through the ground school stuff and went to Brisbane twice and earned my piloting experience up to first solo. Then unfortunately as college started I stopped attempting to attend

Fate intervened again when I dropped out of this university after losing interest in my field. I then was accepted to another college but would not begin studying there until 6 months later. So I took up the courage and contacted the flight school I went to all those times before, went for the flight training and got my Private Pilot's License after two and a half months of continuous training.

Now I'm back in a college studying in the same field again, I still take to the skies once very month just to remind myself of how much I enjoy flying, and how hard I've worked for that license.

[Baikonour]

Flying has the strange effect of totally clearing my head of all thoughts and stress, perhaps due to the level of concentration.

My CFI also says this. She says she sees a lot of pilots who come from stressful jobs in London and enjoy GA flying exactly because it allows them to take a break from whatever normally occupies their mind, replacing all that useless stuff with good stuff related to flying

But it's one of those things you don't typically realise until you have your PPL - it's unlikely to make you take it to begin with? What we need is psychiatrists proscribing a PPL as part of an anti-stress cure

B.