I knew from about age ten that this is what I wanted to do with my life.
By about age fifteen, I was trying to figure out how I was going to do it.
I went to my local airport 'Fairoaks', to try to talk to some pilots to seek their advice.
I saw a very impressive looking man walking across the ramp from a line up of planes.
I struck up a conversation about the best way forward, thinking he must know a lot more than me, due to his high stature.
He was dressed like Idi Amin or some other East African General, only with more braids and tassels and scrambled egg.
The only thing that was missing was the medals.
When I asked him what he was flying, he said it was a Cherokee Arrow.
"Well, when you've hit the big time, like me" was his comment.
Then I realized he was in complete and utter **** wearing a fancy dress costume.
I came to America in the early 1980s with about 125 hours, thinking I was 'hot stuff'.
After all I had done a trip to Le Touquet in the complex aircraft.
We had planned the trip like it was a Space Shuttle launch.
When we took off, I soon pointed out the destination.
It was then that I realized that Lydd to Le Touquet was the same distance as St Petersburg to Tampa.
When I was a flight instructor, one student from New Zealand turned up in an old moth eaten RNZAF flying suit.
After his first lesson, I told him to wash that old stinky thing, or I wouldn't fly with him again.
He didn't, so I passed him off on another instructor.
The next day, I saw the thing drying on the clothes line.
I think the old boy had a few screws loose.
Why anybody would want anything more than shorts and a tee-shirt in summer is beyond me.
'It ain't 'alf hot Mum!'
About ten/fifteen years ago my crew had to dead head from Germany to the UK.
Whilst waiting in the departure hall a stewardess in the operating crew caught my eye, and I went to investigate.
The BM Captain had dressed and presented himself like he was John Steed from The Avengers.
Leather gloves, wing tip pointy boots, eagle head walking cane, and that 'Old Etonian' bent sideways at the knee stance.
When he spoke I thought 'you've got to be kidding me, surely it was a put on', what's with the "Air-hair-lair, I'm Lord Ponsenby Smith-Smyth." thing anyway?
He spoke on the intercom the entire flight.
Thank gawd it was a quick trip, for I had my fingers in my ears the entire time.
That voice was like finger nails on a chalk board to me.
The flaming ego had landed.
There are a few strange birds in America too.
But I quite like the stuntman 'Super Dave' from the David Letterman Show look myself.
The one piece white jumpsuit with a blue and a red stripe down the side, with the scrambled egg blue baseball cap that said Captain.
I just gotta get me one of those.
It just doesn't go well with a Cherokee 140 as a ride.
Last edited by button push ignored; 24th August 2017 at 18:28.