Got to agree with Guppy on what he says about young people not being as air minded as we were. It was a big deal even getting near an aircraft when I was a kid never mind flying in one. I think cheap air travel (not that I'm against it) has eroded some of the magic that goes with flying. People think no more of climbing aboard an aeroplane than they do the local bus downtown.
I was brought up on tales of derring do by the air forces of WWI and II, all of those names from the B of B, Bader, Tuck, Kent and many more, I could probably still describe the combats they were in. I work with young kids and especially with this being the 70th anniversary of the B of B I've been asking them what they know about aviation history. Zilch basically. I suppose we're getting old. It's not that we were taught about it and they weren't, it's just that every kid at my school was mad about planes and could recite the cruising speeds of our V bombers and SAC aircraft like they were reciting the Lord's Prayer.
I didn't fly until I was 20 years old, an hour's local in a Condor from Cranwell Flying Club. I can remember every second of it even though it was 34 years ago. Flying lessons were 7 quid an hour at Cranwell then and I couldn't afford it.....
Glory days indeed.
It always struck me as well that there were very few young pilots at my gliding club, by young I mean under 30. Gliding is cheaper than playing golf (I know being a sufferer of both) and there are plenty of young folk on the golf course.
In fact I've just opened my 1960 Observer's book of aircraft at a random page and got the Grumman F11F-1 Tiger. It looks superb. They don't even make military aircraft that look good anymore do they. Even the smell of the pages in the book makes me all nostalgic. Time to shut up I think.
Last edited by thing; 8th Sep 2010 at 19:08.