First Saturday job, aged 15: local flying club, cleaning birdsh!t off the windscreens of clapped-out C150s, topping up oil, making bad coffee for the local crew of flying dentists and accountants whilst they looked out of the window at the clag. Laughable pay (even less than a present day AFI's, but only just), but every now and then the decidedly eccentric owner would throw me a headset and say "let's go flying". Not sure if his teaching methods/attitude would pass muster nowadays: on my second trip he took his hands and feet off as we started to roll, saying "I can't be bothered to do this takeoff, you do it". The club was based at Bham International. I must go back there one day and shell out bigdosh for handling fees so that I can see if I can get off this time without going diagonally across the runway...

About age 17, best bud and I used to hang around STL looking at the big birds (before days of security). Ventured out to old Wiess Field west of St. Louis, found they gave one hour "sightseeing" flights, 7 bucks a person, down to the Mississipi and back.

Fast forward 27 years, wife suggests I change careers to one I might enjoy better, so here we go flying. Intro flight on a calm clear day (rare in LA) from VNY out to the Pacific, around Channel Islands and back. After that totally hooked.

Still working on the PPL, have to do this part time, travel too much. If only I could log the hours spent in Business Class.

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It's not a matter of where I am, it's a matter of when I am.

[This message has been edited by JetAgeHobo (edited 14 November 2000).]

JetAgeHobo

I know the Weiss School out at Chesterfield - turned up there with a brand new UK PPL in my pocket, got my US one and had some great times flying out there. Be nice to go back one day.

How did I start - always been aviation crazy from as far back as I can remember. Joined the Air Force, got rides in anything possible (3 years on a C130 squadron was the best :)), also learnt to glide and became an instructor.

Left a few years back and became an ATCO, got my PPL not long after. Got the best of both worlds really - not many people get to control at the PFA rally and then fly-in on the same day :)

My dad is ex-RAF so I was brought up on flying stories. After covering the house in Airfix kits and control line models I joined the Air Cadets. I eventually got my PPL in 1989 but will never forget the first ride in an open cockpit T-61 glider (with my left arm in plaster). When I showed my kids the T-61 that they are rebuilding in Duxford and explained that it was the first aeroplane I had flown in they looked at me like I had flown Camels in WW1!

When I was 8 my sister bought me a Santa Flight for Christmas. It was my first flight and I turned up at the airport to find a 1-11 with a red nose and antlers and father christmas sat in the left hand seat. After that I was completely hooked. Now if the weather would clear id be able to carry on

Edited for complete inability to spell
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yet another wannabe

[This message has been edited by ohtofly (edited 15 November 2000).]

I never wanted to fly, I scare of heights, can not climb towers. The first time up I held the seat so tight that my knuckles turn white. When we were turning I shut my eyes. Anyone would like to join me for a ride?

hi folks
G-AMPO,a big green and white Dakota at Farranfore one summer.Out over the Ring of Kerry for 15 minutes.Bliss!! Lovely big,noisy round engines and fat tyres and you had to walk uphill to your seat...how good does it get!? When we landed,there was a red late-model Spitfire and a Comper Swift on the ramp,surrounded by jealous little spamcans.
Absolute joy.
regards
TDD

Back in the early '70's, my uncle Jerry worked at Piper in Vero Beach. He took me for a ride - and wowee!!!
After a school visit, the nice people at Piper gave me a coin that said "This coin and $2 for your first trial lesson".
Never got the chance to use the coin (leaning to fly in Coventry, England) - one day my wife got fed up of me buying magazines and dreaming about flying and told me to get on with it (if you insist!).
Just got my PPL and the world awaits. Perhaps a trip to Florida to try that coin?

Went to an airshow at Ohakea AFB when I was about ummmmmmmmm four? Saw the little planes with the checkers on them doing shapes in the sky with smoke coming out of them Daddy, and the big planes with four motors and four paddles on the wings, and the nasty little black ones (Strikemasters flying in the early eighties, must be NZ) going so fast I ran into the car and hid and cried for ages!! Then Mummy convinced me that it was a person doing it, and then it came in to land, and that wasn't so bad. Then I got a poster of it, then I got a poster of the Space Shuttle, then I got a BIG picture of the "Earthrise" and then I read Jonathon Livingston Seagull and then I was a convert.

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Confident, cocky, lazy, dead.

My Dad ex RAF pilot now 757/767 driver
My Grandad WW2 bomber pilot
My other Grandad WW2 Hurricane pilot.

its in the blood, especially after my first jumpseat on the 757

When I was about 5 years old, there was a program called "The Whirlybirds", where a couple of guys flew around in a Hughes 50 (?)
doing lots of derring-do.

I've hankered to learn ever since, during my "Oh no, I'm about to be a thirty something" crisis a couple of years ago, I finally gathered enough cash to get my PPL done.

Still loving it.

Pete

Whirlybirds? Hughes 500???? Nah, it was a Bell 47G, ala MASH. Although I think on occasions they used a bigger one (47J???). Wonderful program. :)

Talking of cheesy aviation TV, anyone else remember "The Aeronauts"? 1970s French tat featuring two generously side-burned Mirage pilots who spent what little time they had left (after they had pulled several blondes and had big punch-ups with goons) shooting down Terrorist Fouga Magisters over Paris. Dubbed into English by the same talented crew who brought you Belle & Sebastian, White Horses, The Flashing Blade and the Singing Ringing Binging and Bonging Tree. A modern classic.

FNG, a gap in my education there! I don't even remotely remember it even though I watched anything with planes in it.

Thanks FNG I have been trying to remember what that program was called.

My story is as follows:
Born at RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus, not quite at the end of the runway but close enough. Dragged around diferent bases by my parents.
Notables include flight back from Cyprus in 1974, 9yrs old, cockpit visit in Bristol Britannia.
My interest died a bit when I was first prescribed glasses, thats it I will never become a pilot. Interest died a bit more when at 16 I went to RAF Wildenrath, W. Germany on a scout camp. We had a visit to a hardened aircraft shelter where a Phantom was tooled up ready for intercept. All the other scouts were able to climb in and out of the cockpit, minding the yellow/black levers of course, but sorry son you are to big.Over 6 foot tall. Boo Hoo
Several years later, with more than a passing interest in aviation, I went to Duxford Flying Legends 2000. A great show!
Must have been a MK XIV Spit doing a solo and I thought it would be nice to be able to do that. Went to Cabair at Rochester in August for a trial flight and didn't want to get out of the plane.
Why didn't I do this years ago?!
Anyway 4 hours into a PPL, medical next week and enquire about a class one as well.
This week had a trip on 737 to Copenhagen asked to visit the cockpit and pilots asked if I wanted to stay for the landing. Far out!
If doc says I would have no probs with class one then I will take the appropriate courses.
Some day I might be able to return the goodwill shown to me by others.

Rex

Don't worry about the glasses thing, it depends on the level of correction required. I thought the same when I started wearing them aged 11 but I still managed to get a class 1 :)

OK, so you could be inspired to fly by Whirlybirds and even, at a push, by Aeronauts, but presumably no-one has been moved to rush out and buy a headset and a dog-eared Trevor Thom by watching that recent sub-Knight Rider cack about the super-secret techno police helicopter (featuring that talentless geezer out of Battlestar Galactica, I think).

Come to think of it, wouldn't you also be put off by that duff Beeb RFC series "Wings"? Very disappointing: seemed as tho the writers had never read early Biggles, let alone "Sagittarius Rising", and instead produced a sort of Upstairs Downstairs with add-on rotary engines. By contrast, I thought that the ITV adaptation of "Piece of Cake" was quite good (despite all the historical errors such as Spitties in France) and was surprised that it was never repeated.

Ever since I can remember I have enjoyed aviation. I'm 26 now. Done far too much theory, little practical.

Sold everything last year and moved West, now in the middle of PPL whilst working.

I fully intend to go all the way, or as far as it will let me.

Never thought I had any links to aviation, until Granny told me her brother was a Lanc pilot during the War, and went on to become Prime Minister Nehru's chief pilot (India).

So it IS in the blood. I knew it all along. Hope the weather clears......

:)

Happy Flying

I saw the mention of Ringway and I too started there: - a nerdy fellow with my CAM and VHF radio as a plane spotter on the international pier as it was known then.

The specs I got for my 7th birthday had got in the way of a career job. I had lesson in a 172 from the Southside of the then MIA but the job took over. Tried a microlight in the Vale of York until my instructor dug a deep whole therein - grounded by spouse.

It took me until my mid 40's to get my PPL.

Best thing I ever did. Should have done it sooner.

Now have night & VFR OTT and furiously studying for Instrument written.

ian seager
 

Ian,
I think that Captain was me.Go to my web site
www.invicta-airways.co.uk there is a picture of me.
Incidentally, all of you Invicta Airways fans, there is a book almost written about Invicta.
Anyone wants details gerry.abraha,s:tiscali.co.uk