Who were your childhood flying heroes?
PPRuNe Bashmeister
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Who were your childhood flying heroes?
How did you get hooked on flying? Were you influenced by books, comics, film and television characters or did the bug bite during that first joyflight?
For me it was a mixture of Biggles book (I must have read the lot, reckon Spitfire Parade was the best and still have some first editions tucked away) Matt Braddock and Rockfist Rogan from boy's comics in the Fifties and Sixties, Garry Halliday in the BBC TV series, great war films and wartime documentaries and a glider flight from North Weald as soon as I was old enough to fly in one.
[ 27 December 2001: Message edited by: Stan Sted ]</p>
For me it was a mixture of Biggles book (I must have read the lot, reckon Spitfire Parade was the best and still have some first editions tucked away) Matt Braddock and Rockfist Rogan from boy's comics in the Fifties and Sixties, Garry Halliday in the BBC TV series, great war films and wartime documentaries and a glider flight from North Weald as soon as I was old enough to fly in one.
[ 27 December 2001: Message edited by: Stan Sted ]</p>
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According to my parents, I've always had a deep seated desire to go upwards ever since I was born. I went from lying down to sitting; sitting to crawling; crawling to standing up; missed out on walking (because that was along, not up!) and just started climbing stuff; chairs, stairs, tables, kitchen work surfaces, ladders.
Eventually my folks just came to the conclusion that I wanted to be 'up there', which was finally confirmed when they took me to an airshow at Duxford in the seventies when I saw my first Spitfire. And you know, I've never really been right since... <img src="wink.gif" border="0">
Eventually my folks just came to the conclusion that I wanted to be 'up there', which was finally confirmed when they took me to an airshow at Duxford in the seventies when I saw my first Spitfire. And you know, I've never really been right since... <img src="wink.gif" border="0">
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Even before I read my first Biggles book I wanted to fly, but Biggles put the seal on it. To be more like Biggles I took up smoking at 12 and started hating Germans <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> . I think every Biggles book starts with “Biggles looked down from 12000’ and lit a cigarette”
I remember as a kid growing up in Orpington seeing the Aircraft going to and from the Battle-of-Britain Airshows at Biggin and it seemed a non-stop stream of “V” Bombers, Jets and fighters old and new. Once my Folks took me to the show that was it!!!
My heroes were Any Battle-of-Britain Pilot, John Farley (what sort of thrill was it for me a couple of weeks ago?), Virgil Tracey (Thunderbird two pilot) Bill Bedford, John Cunningham, Brian Trubshaw, Ray Hannah, and of the non-flying type, Graham Hill, Jimmy Greaves and Donald Campbell.
I wonder who my Son will try to be like – There don’t seem to be so many famous Pilots nowadays, shame.
I remember as a kid growing up in Orpington seeing the Aircraft going to and from the Battle-of-Britain Airshows at Biggin and it seemed a non-stop stream of “V” Bombers, Jets and fighters old and new. Once my Folks took me to the show that was it!!!
My heroes were Any Battle-of-Britain Pilot, John Farley (what sort of thrill was it for me a couple of weeks ago?), Virgil Tracey (Thunderbird two pilot) Bill Bedford, John Cunningham, Brian Trubshaw, Ray Hannah, and of the non-flying type, Graham Hill, Jimmy Greaves and Donald Campbell.
I wonder who my Son will try to be like – There don’t seem to be so many famous Pilots nowadays, shame.
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Apart from my previously mentioned desire to constantly increase my altitude <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> , there were a few people whose histories and exploits have always had an inspiring effect on me: Douglas Bader and Guy Gibson, were the two whose names meant a great deal in my formative years, and these were later joined by Bob Stanford Tuck (as explained in a post I prepared earlier).
Since then, as far as flying is concerned, my role models are basically anyone who has logged more hours than I have. Needless to say, that list is very long and distinguished. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">
Since then, as far as flying is concerned, my role models are basically anyone who has logged more hours than I have. Needless to say, that list is very long and distinguished. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">
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Whilst a very small but a highly motivated youngster in the early fiftys, I was always being told to " eat your carrots, Thats what Cats Eyes Cunningham eats" so wanting to be just like him I ate my carrots, then Peter Twiss came along and Neville Duke, along with racing drivers like Stirling Moss, and Mike Hawthorn, Jim Clarke, Paddy Hopkirk and many more I think every new generation have their very own special Hero's, who we can all bring back to a special day or event in our live's. 
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For me it has to be at the time of the war starting when I lived just a trio of miles from Croydon. All the pilots were my heroes then, every one of them. It got hooked on flying and it never left me for an instant.
The best bit was when, at the Xmas Gatbash last year, I actually met some of those very same pilots - all my heroes. A thrill beyond measure.
Since then I have met other flying heroes. Then I realise I am still really just a boy at heart.
The best bit was when, at the Xmas Gatbash last year, I actually met some of those very same pilots - all my heroes. A thrill beyond measure.
Since then I have met other flying heroes. Then I realise I am still really just a boy at heart.
"Trust Me"
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Not so much heroes, but who/what made me want to fly:
He never flew, but Leonardo da Vinci; my uncle for taking me up in his Robin over Cheltenham when I was 12; the pilot of a Dornier 228 on my honeymoon in Greece who flew back to Rhodes from Karpathos in formation with another Do228; my instructor on the second part of the trial lesson (bought by my wife) for doing a wingover.
Lots of small events that got me hooked!!
He never flew, but Leonardo da Vinci; my uncle for taking me up in his Robin over Cheltenham when I was 12; the pilot of a Dornier 228 on my honeymoon in Greece who flew back to Rhodes from Karpathos in formation with another Do228; my instructor on the second part of the trial lesson (bought by my wife) for doing a wingover.
Lots of small events that got me hooked!!
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I took my first flight when I was about three months old, my mother laid me down on the kitchen table and I fell off. My flight ended on my head on the kitchen floor and I was brain damaged to the point that I wanted to fly again.
Then, I found another way to fly listening to the radio ( the kind with that green tuning eye ) and following the Battle of Britian. I made up my mind I would someday fly a Spitfire. (havent yet.)
My heroes were the battle of Britian pilots.
....................
The hardest thing about flying is knowing when to say no.
Then, I found another way to fly listening to the radio ( the kind with that green tuning eye ) and following the Battle of Britian. I made up my mind I would someday fly a Spitfire. (havent yet.)
My heroes were the battle of Britian pilots.
....................
The hardest thing about flying is knowing when to say no.
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I don't know the name of my boyhood hero, I only remember what he did.
He stood that Lightning on it's tail at Farnborough and disappeared vertically, forever upwards. I was almost unable to breathe because of that glorious noise of two Avon's at full power and in reheat causing my 5 year old chest to vibrate.
Him and that Mosquito pilot clipping a flag on the display marshalls' marquee.
And that Vulcan pilot nearly clipping my flag off as he ran in over the Farnborough shops to begin his display....
Mind you, they hadn't invented display lines then.
Or colour.
He stood that Lightning on it's tail at Farnborough and disappeared vertically, forever upwards. I was almost unable to breathe because of that glorious noise of two Avon's at full power and in reheat causing my 5 year old chest to vibrate.
Him and that Mosquito pilot clipping a flag on the display marshalls' marquee.
And that Vulcan pilot nearly clipping my flag off as he ran in over the Farnborough shops to begin his display....
Mind you, they hadn't invented display lines then.
Or colour.
My pet theory is that you're born with the interest and that leads you to the literature/activities.
I still have vague memories of flights on Viscounts and Electras as a toddler and the first book I read by myself was about a 'wittle aewoplane'. But there was no family pressure/influence towards things aviation. In fact, the family history was on the rolling seas.
Nevertheless, I became a voracious reader of everything and anything I could get my hands on; be it Biggles, Biographies, Aircraft Histories. My biggest heroes were probably real people from WW1/2 but no one character/person stands above the rest.
None of my siblings shared the interest but I was obviously keen enough; as as soon as funds allowed I did a TIF at the age of 15. Funds and opportunity restricted me to literature until 18 when I soloed and gained a PPL.
At 20, job security and income took centre stage and I moved away from the aviation scene. Family followed and there was little time or money for anything other than the occasional book/mag. So my children have not been brought up in an air minded family environment.
However, all three of them demand to be taken to the occasional air show when we have them and to sit at the end of the runway when the major air exercises are on. The eldest (16) has suddenly started asking about a flying career, the second (13)is an air cadet and definitely wants to be a professional and the third (9)wants an NBA contract so he can afford to buy a private jet <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> .
While our age of heroes may be passing, I believe the desire to fly is strong enough in our children that they will find their own heroes/motivations to help them achieve their dreams...just as we have done. <img src="wink.gif" border="0">
Happy New Year all
I still have vague memories of flights on Viscounts and Electras as a toddler and the first book I read by myself was about a 'wittle aewoplane'. But there was no family pressure/influence towards things aviation. In fact, the family history was on the rolling seas.
Nevertheless, I became a voracious reader of everything and anything I could get my hands on; be it Biggles, Biographies, Aircraft Histories. My biggest heroes were probably real people from WW1/2 but no one character/person stands above the rest.
None of my siblings shared the interest but I was obviously keen enough; as as soon as funds allowed I did a TIF at the age of 15. Funds and opportunity restricted me to literature until 18 when I soloed and gained a PPL.
At 20, job security and income took centre stage and I moved away from the aviation scene. Family followed and there was little time or money for anything other than the occasional book/mag. So my children have not been brought up in an air minded family environment.
However, all three of them demand to be taken to the occasional air show when we have them and to sit at the end of the runway when the major air exercises are on. The eldest (16) has suddenly started asking about a flying career, the second (13)is an air cadet and definitely wants to be a professional and the third (9)wants an NBA contract so he can afford to buy a private jet <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> .
While our age of heroes may be passing, I believe the desire to fly is strong enough in our children that they will find their own heroes/motivations to help them achieve their dreams...just as we have done. <img src="wink.gif" border="0">
Happy New Year all
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CS: Your theory is true in my case, I cannot remember back far enough to the time when I wasn't interested in aircraft and flying.
No one in my family before or since has shown the same interest.
My strong desire to be a pilot was strengthened during WW2 as I watched the battle being fought overhead southern England
So my heroes were none that I knew by name but anyone on our side up there, guns blazing and driving off the enemy.
No one in my family before or since has shown the same interest.
My strong desire to be a pilot was strengthened during WW2 as I watched the battle being fought overhead southern England
So my heroes were none that I knew by name but anyone on our side up there, guns blazing and driving off the enemy.
Started out by cycling to the airport to see the daily BEA Viking arriving in Gibraltar. Also watched the RAF Shakletons (Mk1) come and go with the occasional Lincoln. The day a flight of Canberras went through was something.
At school aside from memorizing the Observers Book of Aircraft I knew Pierre Clostermann's books cover to cover. Likewise Neville Duke and Mike Lithgow's. Paul Brickhill's books on Douglas Bader and the Dambusters, ditto.
My uncle flew around with Bader ocasionally when he (Bader) was in charge of Shell oil's aviation section.
I also read avidly, Adolph Galland's book "The First and the Last" and a book by Heinz Knoke called "I flew for the Fuhrer"
Finally I managed to get hold of an RAF Flying Training Manual that had been pen and ink amended up to 1940. I still have it. Quite a contrast to the latest aircraft I flew.
At school aside from memorizing the Observers Book of Aircraft I knew Pierre Clostermann's books cover to cover. Likewise Neville Duke and Mike Lithgow's. Paul Brickhill's books on Douglas Bader and the Dambusters, ditto.
My uncle flew around with Bader ocasionally when he (Bader) was in charge of Shell oil's aviation section.
I also read avidly, Adolph Galland's book "The First and the Last" and a book by Heinz Knoke called "I flew for the Fuhrer"
Finally I managed to get hold of an RAF Flying Training Manual that had been pen and ink amended up to 1940. I still have it. Quite a contrast to the latest aircraft I flew.
Safety First!
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My passion for flying came from living near Wigram, NZ's oldest military aerodrome, where RNZAF CFS used to fly Harvards. I remember looking over the window sill to watch the colourful aircraft circuiting overhead and watching the lights move around the sky at night.
Then I started reading the 'Biggles' books and collecting the weekly 'Battle' comic, lots of WW2 stories (mostly fantasy but a good motivator to read more about flying as I got older). When I was old enough I joined the air cadets and started gliding, the rest is history.
As for chilhood aviation heroes, definitely on my list are all Battle of Britain pilots especially Bader, Biggles the book character, Richtofen of WW1 fame, and later Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith and his Southern Cross Fokker trimotor.
Kermie <img src="smile.gif" border="0">
Then I started reading the 'Biggles' books and collecting the weekly 'Battle' comic, lots of WW2 stories (mostly fantasy but a good motivator to read more about flying as I got older). When I was old enough I joined the air cadets and started gliding, the rest is history.
As for chilhood aviation heroes, definitely on my list are all Battle of Britain pilots especially Bader, Biggles the book character, Richtofen of WW1 fame, and later Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith and his Southern Cross Fokker trimotor.
Kermie <img src="smile.gif" border="0">
Five years at a school alongside Croydon Aerodrome, then working airside at LHR, and when the endowment money arrived spent it on a PPL, better late than never <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0">
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I never really had any flying heroes because I grew up (am growing up) in a time where flying is not as special as it was 60 years ago when only very few could take part in it. 60 years ago flying was really popular with everyone so Biggles etc became popular but nowadays there is no demand for that.
I am interested in the golden age of aviation so I would say all first and second world war flyers are my heroes but more specifically people like Cecil Lewis who ive read about. However I wasnt hooked on aviation due to this, I read it because I was hooked.
The odd thing is that I didnt always like aviation, I only got into it when I was about 11 possibly due to a trip to Farnborough but I dont really know. Also when I first liked flying I didnt care about anything that wasnt a mach 3 jet but I then liked "the golden age of aviation" and I cant remember exactly when or why even though it was only about 4 years ago. I didnt like it because of stuff I read though, I read stuff about it because I liked it. I was definitely completley hooked on flying after a ride in a Tiger Moth though.
I am interested in the golden age of aviation so I would say all first and second world war flyers are my heroes but more specifically people like Cecil Lewis who ive read about. However I wasnt hooked on aviation due to this, I read it because I was hooked.
The odd thing is that I didnt always like aviation, I only got into it when I was about 11 possibly due to a trip to Farnborough but I dont really know. Also when I first liked flying I didnt care about anything that wasnt a mach 3 jet but I then liked "the golden age of aviation" and I cant remember exactly when or why even though it was only about 4 years ago. I didnt like it because of stuff I read though, I read stuff about it because I liked it. I was definitely completley hooked on flying after a ride in a Tiger Moth though.
Like others, Bigglesdominated my reading as soon as I could get past Jack & Jill.
Gary Halliday (see another thread for explanation) made Saturday afternoons very worthwhile on the box.
And once my Dad realised I had the bug (he had had but got sidetracked into the Army), he took me to airshows at Church Fenton and Finningley, where I gazed in raptures at the Black Arrows.
I still want a black Hunter.....
Gary Halliday (see another thread for explanation) made Saturday afternoons very worthwhile on the box.
And once my Dad realised I had the bug (he had had but got sidetracked into the Army), he took me to airshows at Church Fenton and Finningley, where I gazed in raptures at the Black Arrows.
I still want a black Hunter.....
It was probably Sir George Cayley's coachman who used to talk about being made to fly by his master - and there were those two Yanks from Kitty Hawk who told me that they were getting bored with bikes.......
No, seriously it was a combination of living 1/2 mile from the threshold of RAF Merryfield's RW26 when 208 AFS was there - plus the odd visiting ac such as Canberras and, on one occasion, a Lancaster which had flown down all the way from Kinloss with salmon for the Officers' Mess dining-in night! There were many military aircraft flying around at low level in those days such as Sea Venoms, Wyverns, Sabres, then Hunters - and even the odd Mossie from the CAACU at Exeter. I also used to go with my father to Dunkeswell, Lulsgate and Weston Zoyland on his business - and there was the annual Yeovilton Air Show; I can still remember the Avro 707C, the Scimitar and the Sea Vixen making their appearances there. We all knew about the household names of John Cunningham, Bill Bedford, John Derry, Peter Twiss (1132 mph in the Fairey Delta 2!), etc etc - the newspapers reported the 707/Comet 4 transatlantic contest, the London-Paris race, the feats of the Black Arrows (saw them at Merryfield's last proper air show in 1958!).......
On TV there was 'Gary Halliday' and the occasional flying programme (plus our TV would sometimes pick up interference from Merryfield GCA!!), the 'Air War Picture Library' (all the Germans, sorry, 'Jerries' could be guaranteed to say things like "Ach Himmel" and "Achtung Schpitfeuer!") and 'Biggles' made a pleasant change from Kennedy's Latin Primer. Airfix, Revell, Frog, Aurora, Lindbergh, Keil Kraft and Veron all played their part as did the frequent visits from a Hunter pilot friend of the family who would give me the odd recce journal and 'Air Clues' to read....My first flight was in a Piper Carribean in 1962, first military flight was in a Sea Vixen in 1966!
I guess that I was just very fortunate to live in an area where there was a lot of military flying from the days of the Meteor to the arrival of the RN's Phantom; aviation was often in the news and air-mindedness was very common - the bug bit me at a very early age!!
No, seriously it was a combination of living 1/2 mile from the threshold of RAF Merryfield's RW26 when 208 AFS was there - plus the odd visiting ac such as Canberras and, on one occasion, a Lancaster which had flown down all the way from Kinloss with salmon for the Officers' Mess dining-in night! There were many military aircraft flying around at low level in those days such as Sea Venoms, Wyverns, Sabres, then Hunters - and even the odd Mossie from the CAACU at Exeter. I also used to go with my father to Dunkeswell, Lulsgate and Weston Zoyland on his business - and there was the annual Yeovilton Air Show; I can still remember the Avro 707C, the Scimitar and the Sea Vixen making their appearances there. We all knew about the household names of John Cunningham, Bill Bedford, John Derry, Peter Twiss (1132 mph in the Fairey Delta 2!), etc etc - the newspapers reported the 707/Comet 4 transatlantic contest, the London-Paris race, the feats of the Black Arrows (saw them at Merryfield's last proper air show in 1958!).......
On TV there was 'Gary Halliday' and the occasional flying programme (plus our TV would sometimes pick up interference from Merryfield GCA!!), the 'Air War Picture Library' (all the Germans, sorry, 'Jerries' could be guaranteed to say things like "Ach Himmel" and "Achtung Schpitfeuer!") and 'Biggles' made a pleasant change from Kennedy's Latin Primer. Airfix, Revell, Frog, Aurora, Lindbergh, Keil Kraft and Veron all played their part as did the frequent visits from a Hunter pilot friend of the family who would give me the odd recce journal and 'Air Clues' to read....My first flight was in a Piper Carribean in 1962, first military flight was in a Sea Vixen in 1966!
I guess that I was just very fortunate to live in an area where there was a lot of military flying from the days of the Meteor to the arrival of the RN's Phantom; aviation was often in the news and air-mindedness was very common - the bug bit me at a very early age!!
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Were and still are Bader and Gibson.
Had 'Over to you' for christmas and has prompted me to find out more about R.Dahl....(Going Solo - anyone read?)
[ 30 December 2001: Message edited by: TRIMTRABB ]</p>
Had 'Over to you' for christmas and has prompted me to find out more about R.Dahl....(Going Solo - anyone read?)
[ 30 December 2001: Message edited by: TRIMTRABB ]</p>