Why did you learn to fly?
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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Why did you learn to fly?
Would be interesting to see your answers, many refer to the 'flying bug' and I suppose that is what motivates me.
However, the thing that made me want to fly was my first visit to a 767 cockpit of the one and only Britannia airlines. Haven't looked back since, and that was 14 years ago
FS
However, the thing that made me want to fly was my first visit to a 767 cockpit of the one and only Britannia airlines. Haven't looked back since, and that was 14 years ago
FS
I grew up obsessed with space travel, and also liked the whole engineering business, and after my A-levels went to do a degree in aeronautics and astronautics. En-route, got sponsorship from the MoD.
During my training and degree, I spent some time in aircraft design, got a few trips in various things, managed to wrangle a short placement in a flight test department, and also got into the University Air Squadron.
I never lost the interest in Engineering, but decided that what I really liked was sexy manned flight vehicles, it just happened that the first sort I really noticed were spacecraft.
I decided that the best way to really engage with sexy flight vehicles was to pursue both flying and engineering. Over the 24 or so years since I started, I've just got steadily more obsessed with, and qualified in both. Both flying and engineering I do both as my job and my hobby.
G
During my training and degree, I spent some time in aircraft design, got a few trips in various things, managed to wrangle a short placement in a flight test department, and also got into the University Air Squadron.
I never lost the interest in Engineering, but decided that what I really liked was sexy manned flight vehicles, it just happened that the first sort I really noticed were spacecraft.
I decided that the best way to really engage with sexy flight vehicles was to pursue both flying and engineering. Over the 24 or so years since I started, I've just got steadily more obsessed with, and qualified in both. Both flying and engineering I do both as my job and my hobby.
G
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Funnily enough it was a visit to the flight deck of a Brittania 767 which got me in to flying
Did you get the flight deck poster too with all the bits labelled?!
Did you get the flight deck poster too with all the bits labelled?!
Last edited by WALSue; 18th Jan 2012 at 16:53.
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I grew up around planes and my dad (PPL) and grand dad (RFC) were both pilots. Flying Magazine (especially the "I learned about flying from that" stories) was a staple of my youth. I probably had 150 hours of RHS "flying" by the time my dad stopped flying when I was 17 but never had any formal lessons.
As I got older, I didn't have the time or the money to take formal lessons or gain any qualifications. Last autumn a friend of mine who was similarly bitten by the flying bug decided to do a compressed FAA PPL course. As I finally had the time and the money, I decided to join him.
All of my childhood dreams came true when I got my PPL late last year. It was one of the most challenging and rewarding things that I have done in my life.
I now find myself having to reign in my excitement to make sure that I get through the 50 to 300 hour "danger zone" as safely as possible and hope to get my MEL and IR in the next two years so that I spend quite a bit of the "danger zone" with an instructor and have positive behaviours reinforced and negative behaviours overridden as frequently as possibly.
My wife is so happy that I have realised a childhood ambition that she is going to do an AOPA style "pinch hitter course". While this is probably 10% of a PPL, I feel better about having at least 1.1 PPLs in the plane with me than just 1 whenever I fly.
As I got older, I didn't have the time or the money to take formal lessons or gain any qualifications. Last autumn a friend of mine who was similarly bitten by the flying bug decided to do a compressed FAA PPL course. As I finally had the time and the money, I decided to join him.
All of my childhood dreams came true when I got my PPL late last year. It was one of the most challenging and rewarding things that I have done in my life.
I now find myself having to reign in my excitement to make sure that I get through the 50 to 300 hour "danger zone" as safely as possible and hope to get my MEL and IR in the next two years so that I spend quite a bit of the "danger zone" with an instructor and have positive behaviours reinforced and negative behaviours overridden as frequently as possibly.
My wife is so happy that I have realised a childhood ambition that she is going to do an AOPA style "pinch hitter course". While this is probably 10% of a PPL, I feel better about having at least 1.1 PPLs in the plane with me than just 1 whenever I fly.
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I've always had an interest, although that waned when I realised my eyesight wasn't good enough for the RAF. Its in my blood too - although not as much as some of the others before me here! My Dad was in the air cadets although managed to fail his uni exams and had to re-prioritise before getting his PPL (he still hasn't got it). My Granddad flew transport planes at the end of WWII before going out to USA as an instructor. He changed jobs, becoming a chemical engineer, but kept up his skills as a PPL. Unfortunately he passed away while I was tiny - and so never took me up.
But then I started going out with a girl whoose Dad is a flight instructor / aeronautical engineer. It would only be polite of course to say yes when he offered me a trial lesson...
Now hooked in two ways (both to the girl and flying) he is taking me through my PPL. The flying incentive wasn't the only reason I got married... honest!
But then I started going out with a girl whoose Dad is a flight instructor / aeronautical engineer. It would only be polite of course to say yes when he offered me a trial lesson...
Now hooked in two ways (both to the girl and flying) he is taking me through my PPL. The flying incentive wasn't the only reason I got married... honest!
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I had my first flight in an Auster from Ringway (now Manchester Airport) when I was about 8. I sat behind the pilot and was amazed that he could move the stick and the whole world tilted over. "I want to do that one day; move a stick and tilt the world", I vowed. But I always thought flying would be too expensive so went on a gliding course at Nympsfield in the glorious summer of 1976.
Gliding (at Camphill, which I joined) didn't really do it for me. So in 1978 I went to Lancs Aero Club at Barton and 7 months later I had my PPL. Shortly after that I had a share in Chipmunk G-BCSL.
34 years (and counting!) of flying small aeroplanes - best thing I ever did!
Gliding (at Camphill, which I joined) didn't really do it for me. So in 1978 I went to Lancs Aero Club at Barton and 7 months later I had my PPL. Shortly after that I had a share in Chipmunk G-BCSL.
34 years (and counting!) of flying small aeroplanes - best thing I ever did!
When I was a little boy, my parents used to take me to our holiday house on a small island in the Hauraki Gulf. I vividly remember watching a Grumman Goose come in low over our house on final for the bay with its P&W R985s throttled back. The first time I saw that I knew that's what I wanted to do. I am not a commercial pilot, but I'm up there sharing sky with them every weekend I can.
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1964. Nottingham Airshow. My dad had a few contacts with the railway. Travelled in the guards van behind a steam locomotive. Then, 9 English Electric Lightnings. Can have a strange and lasting effect on a 5 year old lol
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Had electronics as a hobby since age 6, and like the other chap above it has fed me, since the 1970s.
Periodically looked at getting a PPL over the years but could never see the point. Then one day, post divorce, out on a date with what turned out to be a certified bunny boiler, I saw a plane overhead and commented about maybe learning to fly. She said "why don't you stop wondering and just get on it with" so I did.
Ultimately I learnt to fly to go places and see Europe from the air, which has been achieved pretty well albeit at a significant cost in time and money. After many years I am getting back into electronics (hardware/software) as an interesting activity.
Periodically looked at getting a PPL over the years but could never see the point. Then one day, post divorce, out on a date with what turned out to be a certified bunny boiler, I saw a plane overhead and commented about maybe learning to fly. She said "why don't you stop wondering and just get on it with" so I did.
Ultimately I learnt to fly to go places and see Europe from the air, which has been achieved pretty well albeit at a significant cost in time and money. After many years I am getting back into electronics (hardware/software) as an interesting activity.
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My wife bought me a trial flight in a helicopter for a birthday present. Failing to achieve a hover convinced me that this was the hardest thing I had ever tried to do, and from there I was hooked.
Always fascinated by flying and eventually joined the RAF as engineer (believing the lie that I could subsequently transfer to pilot). After a few years, my wife bought me a ppl lesson and I ended up finishing the course just to prove to myself that I could. After stumbling into flying, ten years on from that ppl lesson I'm now flying 747s.
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I was brought up on the Sunday afternoon B/W films on TV like Angels 15 and the Dambusters. Flying always represented freedom, doing something that few people did or could do. I've been an aviation bore for most of my life I think, I used to be looking up the details of the Daimler Benz powerplant in an ME 109 while my mates were in the school air raid shelter smoking. The highlight of the year was the Finningley air show. The smell of freshly mown grass and burnt avtur is the most evocative smell in the world to me.
I spent 22 years as an avionics technician employed by Betty, have flown gliders for decades and recently got my powered. I still love anything aviation related, feel totally at home in the sky or around aircraft and I'm very proud to be a pilot, as I think it's an enormous privilege.
I spent 22 years as an avionics technician employed by Betty, have flown gliders for decades and recently got my powered. I still love anything aviation related, feel totally at home in the sky or around aircraft and I'm very proud to be a pilot, as I think it's an enormous privilege.
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Age 9 a flight in my father's friend's Piper, right seat, got to hold the yoke, couldn't keep straight (still can't).
Age 10 cockpit visit on Malawi Airways Super VC10, the Captain an unknown uncle WWII Lancaster navigator.
Age 10-16 many boarding school flights on Alitalia and Zambia Airways DC8s, most of the time spent in the cockpit.
Age 16 I became a hangar rat at the local aeroclub.
A simple PPL, with long range bimbles.
In a next life I want to be a professional ferry pilot.
Age 10 cockpit visit on Malawi Airways Super VC10, the Captain an unknown uncle WWII Lancaster navigator.
Age 10-16 many boarding school flights on Alitalia and Zambia Airways DC8s, most of the time spent in the cockpit.
Age 16 I became a hangar rat at the local aeroclub.
A simple PPL, with long range bimbles.
In a next life I want to be a professional ferry pilot.
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Lincolnshire
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Visiting Sarfend Aircraft museum aged about 4
The Falklands War made a big impression on me as a 6 year old; loved the sight of the Vulcans taking off.
Had a family trip in the DH Rapide at Duxford for my 10th birthday
Read Paul Brickhill's "Dambusters" when I was 12 and watched just about every WW2 RAF film going...
My career has been with the RAF (with a slight excursion into the underworld of Pongoland, but please forgive me for that So have always loved aircraft and things aviation.
But the icing on the cake as it were was when my friend took me for a spin in a BBMF Chippy in 2009. My first taste of flying a light aircraft, and he gave me control with some straight and level, aeros and landings...after that, with my interest as well, there was no going back. I had always had a dream of becoming a pilot since the age of 6 and now I just had to do it....so here I am, a student pilot
The Falklands War made a big impression on me as a 6 year old; loved the sight of the Vulcans taking off.
Had a family trip in the DH Rapide at Duxford for my 10th birthday
Read Paul Brickhill's "Dambusters" when I was 12 and watched just about every WW2 RAF film going...
My career has been with the RAF (with a slight excursion into the underworld of Pongoland, but please forgive me for that
So have always loved aircraft and things aviation.But the icing on the cake as it were was when my friend took me for a spin in a BBMF Chippy in 2009. My first taste of flying a light aircraft, and he gave me control with some straight and level, aeros and landings...after that, with my interest as well, there was no going back. I had always had a dream of becoming a pilot since the age of 6 and now I just had to do it....so here I am, a student pilot
Biggles.
First aeroplane ride, at age 10: a birthday present. (specifically requested.) I got to steer. It was in this very aircraft. (She was factory blue and white, then.)
Then later, I went through PPL training as part of my job.
First aeroplane ride, at age 10: a birthday present. (specifically requested.) I got to steer. It was in this very aircraft. (She was factory blue and white, then.)
Then later, I went through PPL training as part of my job.
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Aeroplane mad from a very young age - wasn't every boy in the 1950's?
Model aircraft, starting with chuck gliders and ending with designing r/c aerobatic gliders and powered aircraft in my teens.
Solo'd in a Mk3 on a week RAF Cadet gliding course at Weston super Mare (after 3 days actually) aged 17 and then didn't fly again for nearly 30 years...
Started gliding again and after 10 happy years doing that got my PPL. Now a proud part-owner of a 50 year old Jodel 1050 on a farmstrip.
You know those dreams you have when you just know you can fly (I mean, without an aeroplane) but you remain stuck to the ground?
Those dreams changed for me when I started flying - I can fly in dreams whenever I want now...
Model aircraft, starting with chuck gliders and ending with designing r/c aerobatic gliders and powered aircraft in my teens.
Solo'd in a Mk3 on a week RAF Cadet gliding course at Weston super Mare (after 3 days actually) aged 17 and then didn't fly again for nearly 30 years...
Started gliding again and after 10 happy years doing that got my PPL. Now a proud part-owner of a 50 year old Jodel 1050 on a farmstrip.
You know those dreams you have when you just know you can fly (I mean, without an aeroplane) but you remain stuck to the ground?
Those dreams changed for me when I started flying - I can fly in dreams whenever I want now...