Your first time
 

What gave you that initial buzz?
How did you get the urge to go aloft?
Answers please on a postard...

My first flight was a C 54 Skymaster Manston to Ostend with Invicta Airways with my mum and dad in 1966, our first holiday "abroad".

On the return I actually blagged a cockpit ride and the seeds were sown... does that guy realise what he did? :)

When I was a kid I cycled to the park and watched the RC models, decided that one day I'd like to do it for real, then forgot all about it.
Years later after buying a house, I found that I spent my time either working or doing DIY (yuck). I then saw an ad in the local paper - 'We'll teach you to fly a glider for free!' - That was the start.
Ian

My biggest inspiration was my big mouth!
Found out a guy at work was an instructor, and shot my mouth off about unimpressed I was. Anyone could do it!
My bluff was called and it was put up or shut up!
After first flight I was scared witless! Then I realized 'Hey, This is fun!', and I was hooked...!

Sad, huh..?

Must admit, I was a user of MSFS98 and then 2000. Always had an interest in aviation since I was a kid. Never thought about learning to fly because of the cost and time involved.

My wife planned to get me a trial lesson for Xmas last year. Had 1st lesson in April. Was really excited, but nervous beforehand.

Couldn't believe it when my instructor told me hold the yoke, advance the throttle and rotate at 60KIAS. Didn't think I would do this in the first lesson. The sensation I went through on that 1st rotate was amazing. Was hooked immediately and proceeded to book a lesson for the next day.

Sturggling to find the funds here in Ireland. Looking at hour building in the states 2001 with the hope to complete license late 01, early 02.

When I was a kid, my parents travelled around a lot. By the time I was eleven I had over 300 separate flights to my pax credit.

We settled down around that time, and through my teens I pretty much forgot about how much fun flying is.

Early twenties, I'd already quit two university courses because of boredom and didn't have a clue what to do with my life, when I read a book by a fellow named Richard Bach. Then I read another of his books... and that was that. A TIF only confirmed what, by that time, I knew to be true. I *had* to fly!

Does *that* guy realize what he did? :)

People have a lot to answer for don't they?

Authors, wives and instructors!

I sometimes wonder about the guy who by his kindness got me hooked, it is conceivable that he is still around.

Anyone know of a bloke who was a DC4 captain for Invicta Airways in 1966 who took a 10 year old Bolton kid "under his wing" for half an hour? :)

We are all hopefully passing the gene on by doing similar things,I love taking kids out, they have no sense of fear and the look in their faces makes it so worthwhile.

Less romantic I'm afraid. I realised early in my career that all the best Aero-Eng jobs went to people who understood flying as well as Engineering. So, I took a couple of flying lessons.

And then I got hooked.

G

I think it’s in my genes. My Mum was in the WAAF just after the war and blagged flights in a Mosquito, Lancasters and a meteor. Her Brother was in the RAF and also loved flying (The Uncle I was hoping to take to the IWM Fly-in) I read every Biggles Book ever written (I realised that is why I started smoking) later on I read just about every BoB book I could find. As a Kid I lived in Orpington near Biggin and would go to every Air show. When I was about 12 some mates and myself would walk the 10 or so miles to Biggin to sit under the approach and wave at the Pilots.

In 1978 aged 21 I was working in Chichester, had a couple of quid in my pocket and went to Goodwood for a trial lesson. That was it, I was hooked, I quit the job I had and went to work in Saudi to earn enough for lessons. Got my licence in the mid eighties but due to lack of funds (an hour then cost about the same as it does now I seem to remember) I lapsed. Started a family, did some other things but never got rid of the bug, so in 1997 I got my licence back and enjoy it as much as ever.

Screeched to a halt outside Welshpool Airfield on my way back from work; on impulse I decided to find out if flying was as expensive as I'd always thought it must be. Ended up booking a trial lesson, and then... A familiar story; same as everyone else really.

Whirly in Egypt

------------------
To fly is human, to hover, divine.

First flight - GACEJ DH83 Fox Moth, Southport beach, cicra 1960/61 with (I hope) the legendary Monsieur Giro.

This aircraft was virtually destroyed by fire at Old Warden in 1966 when another aircraft crashed into it. It was eventually re-built by the late Ben Cooper at Rendcomb and appears regularly at the Woburn Moth Rally.

I remember the flights from Southport beach.

Do they still fly from there?

Never operated from a tidal strip, how do you ascertain the state of the surface from the air?

Haven't been to Southport in years so don't know if there's any flying there anymore. Use to go regularly as there were relatives there, don't think I ever saw the tide in!!!! :) :) :) :) The beach was always very firm.

I also remember GADDI DH Dragon pleasure flying out of Blackpool. I flew in this later when it was operated by Chris Roberts (I think). I believe this is still around in the US (N34DH).

Flying was just another form of transport, albeit slightly superior to an eleven yr old, well who makes Airfix buses?

Dad took a job in Brazil and jet travel became boarding school to jungle home transportation. Belem International was just a shack and a warehouse at the mouth of the Amazon. Having arrived by Varig, Pan Am or chartered American carrier, home was still 400 km's away by company DC3.

The 11/12 yr old gringo boy was always offered a seat in the Goony-bird cockpit but always refused! One day, after another unaccompanied flight from LHR via Miami, there was no-one to meet me at Belem: I found the normal meeting area, recognised the Captain and told him of my predicament. Both Carlos and Jose recognised me and alleviated any anxiety (haven't seen yr folks for 12 weeks and your mum wasn't at MIA like advertised - your not sure if you should have waited - but hell, yr booked through and no there are no 'phones in the jungle!!)

An hour later - climbing out over the Amazon as dawn broke, sitting in the cockpit with the two cheroot smoking crew, I thought - yeah this is good!

Jose called the company on the HF net and I told my father that I was "inbound estimating arrival at 0852". Mum and Dad met me at the strip!

Jose, the co-pilot kept a C150 at the company strip and whenever I returned we'd fly together. Obrigado, 'se!

Twenty years later in Africa, I did my DC3 ground school and as a multi-engine rated PPL took my vacation in-country to fly UNICEF aid food into the bush in DC3's and Caribous.

I just love it but have no desire to prostitute myself by doing it for money!

sNr - just a PPL

Taking my first trial flight this Friday, so look out could end up anywhere!

Long, hot summer of '76, RAF West Raynham, Norfolk: nervous, spoddy, never-flown-before Air Cadet, just old enough to be allowed on annual camp, staggering out encumbered by seat-parachute to red and white Chipmunk shimmering in the haze coming off the asphalt. Been-there-done-that RAFVR Flying Officer waiting in the cockpit(probably a retired Air Marshall with a zillion hours on Hunters). "Sir Sir, please Sir can we go upside down please Sir....". We did.

Can't remember what first made me obsessed with aeroplanes, but remember going into a frenzy aged 9 when a routine visit to the local shops was transformed by the mysterious presence in the ice rink car park of a wingless Spitfire on a flatbed truck. I reached up on tiptoes and touched its wheel, and spent the rest of the day in a dream...

Good luck, Goldie, you won't regret it! :)

Back to the thread, having spent time on a carrier and often as armed pax in Wessex Mk 5, often wished I could fly a chopper.

But trial flights are damned expensive, so I was given two vouchers for a C152 instead.

About the best thing I ever did was start to fly.

:)

------------------
Me, sweat? I'm that cool, it's condensation.

On which subject I had a phone call yesterday from a young family friend. He's 14 but been aviation potty since I've known him - which (with his Dad's permission) I've encouraged by trips to flying museums, etc. Somehow I've yet to take him flying; whenever they visit, the weather's crap.

Well, since I last saw him he's joined the Air Cadets, and on Sunday got his first flight (in the new Grob Tutor) - I think his account of the flight took longer than the flight - he obviously got a few aeros in (and quite right too!).

I'll give better than even odds that in 10 years that young man is strapping into a Eurofighter 5 days a week.

G

I've always wanted to do it for as long as I can remember, but it was probably a birthday treat of a flight in an Auster (i think) from what was then Ringway (now Manchester) at the age of about 7. I sat behind the pilot and was amazed that he could move this stick thingy and tilt the whole world. Wow! One day I'm gonna do that! But as I got older it seemed that flying was something ordinary guys don't do. Then in that glorious summer of 1976 my wife and I went on a Gliding holiday to Nympsfield nedar Stroud. Then I read Richard Bach's 'A Gift of Wings', took up gliding, got frustrated at the lack of time in the air V. time on ground, and a friend took me up in a C150 from Barton. Suddenly it seemd possible - so I signed up and 8 months later had my PPL. That was over 20 years ago, and i treasure the experiences of those 20 years.

Also very pleased to report that several guys who I introduced to the delights of a Chipmunk have since become PPLs themselves.

SSG

1969, 8 years old, Grandfather secretary of Hounslow Town Football Club. Bored sitting on touchline in pouring rain on a Saturday afternoon so looked at the airliners on app into LHR instead of the football and thought "looks fun - like to do that". Then cadets at school in Reading, Chippy flights etc and cycling 11 miles to White Waltham and Blackbushe every weekend with friend. Offered flights from time to time and then PPL in 1986 at Wycombe. Now IMC/Night and 500 hours. Still get a great buzz.....

arrow 2

1969. I was six years old and had to fly from Toronto to Sydney, NS to visit some relatives. I had recently seen Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines and was pretty excited when the family told me I'd be going on a plane ride (note to parents of small children- NEVER tell them the destination unless you want the infernal Are We There Yet refrain). We flew in an Air Canada Vanguard, a noisy lumbering behemoth that made several stops and took all day. I thought it was the greatest machine ever invented!

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.

--------------------------------------------
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
------------------
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.

------------------
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