First gen pilots, how were you introduced to GA?

Dav8or

Dav8or

Final Approach
Joined
Jan 6, 2007
Messages
5,174
Location
Discovery Bay, CA
Display Name
Display name:
Dave
After reading through the first gen pilot thread I realized that many first generation pilots had a friend, or non blood relative introduce them to GA. Stories like "Took me for a ride in his Cub when I was 10..." , that kind of stuff. I thought it might be interesting to know how you first generation pilots got started down the actual path to the PPL. Sure, we all probably liked planes as a kid, had some models and probably could identify a few in the sky, but what actually got your butt down to the airport for the intro flight?

I thought that I could never be a pilot because I have to wear glasses, so taking flight lessons never occurred to me. I was living in Oakland and my best friend was living Camarillo and I was visiting when he told me that he had gone for an intro ride and was going to get his PPL. I was very curious as I thought he would not be eligible either due to eyesight. He explained to me what he had learned at the local flight school that gave him the intro flight under the AOPA "Be a Pilot" promotion.

We went to Camarillo (KCMA), had lunch at the diner and afterwards walked out onto the ramp. What a mind expanding experience that was.

"What you mean? We can just walk out there?"

"Yup."

"We don't have to show an ID, or something??!"

"Nope."

Imagine that. Walking around real airplanes just like it was the Sears parking lot. I still thought somebody with a badge would show up at any moment to escort us off. My friend proposed there on the ramp that we should get our PPLs together. He in Camarillo and me in Oakland. I sort of dismissed it, but a tiny little wheel started turning in my head.

I thought about it a lot on the drive back to Oakland. That week I cracked open a phone book (remember those?) and looked up flight instruction. My first stop was Sierra Academy, it's one of those airline flight academies with everyone walking round with bars on their shoulders. An instructor there told me of the tens of thousands of dollars it was going to cost to go through the program, the schedule, the ground school, all the supplies... it was not a good vibe for me. I think he realized that I wasn't going to be a "real" pilot and suggested I try Oakland Flyers down the road.

Sure enough, I show up at Oakland Flyers and there is the AOPA "Be a Pilot" sign in the window. I talked to the first available instructor there and he told me that what Sierra had told me was all crap and you didn't need all that to be a pilot. Then he said, "Wanna go fly?"

"What do you mean? Like, right now?!!"

.6 intro flight with me steering the plane around the sky and some instruction on how to do that and I was hooked. Signed up for lessons, it became my new obsession and I drove everyone around me crazy with airplane talk. I quickly got my license and my best friend never even went back for lesson 1.

The point of my long story is, if we want people to take up flying IMO, we need to-

1) Somehow educate the general populous about what is and isn't possible.

2) Invite people onto the ramp where they can look at real airplanes.

3) Do the promo intro flights. They really work.
 
True story. Early morning drive to Philipsburg MT to go skiing at Discovery. Morning coffee did what morning coffee does and I found myself in an emergency situation and found the only quick stop in Philipsburg. Inside the facility where I was tending to my emergency, there's a corkboard, it had a flyer for a local guy doing flight lessons with rates posted, much cheaper than i thought. I had time to contemplate it, jotted down the number and called later on that day.
 
Grandfather was an airplane nut, but not a pilot.. We used to go out to the airport and plane watch, flew R/C at MCAS camp pendleton (try doing that now). Just got bit bad, and had to fly full scale.
 
I hated airplanes after looking out the window and watching a couple fly into buildings my senior year of high school.

Then I started working at a company that makes engines for the silly things, and one of my coworkers took me for a ride. I took my first lesson, had fun and said "When's my next lesson?" "What're you doing tomorrow?" Ended up having actual IMC for lesson two. I was fortunate enough to have an instructor who was a great friend and knew exactly what I needed to keep me excited and motivated.

Yeah, I think flying is pretty alright now. :)
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Then I started working at a company that makes engines for the silly things, and one of my coworkers took me for a ride. I took my first lesson, had fun and said "When's my next lesson?" "What're you doing tomorrow?" Ended up having actual IMC for lesson two. I was fortunate enough to have an instructor who was a great friend and knew exactly what I needed to keep me excited and motivated.
Click to expand...

Ted bolluxed the chance for the ultimate Star Wars swag when as CFI he took said coworker for a BFR and failed to say "the circle is now complete".

When I got recruited to my current position one of my colleagues was a pilot. After discussing the economics with him I realized it was within my reach and the rest is, as they say, history.
 
I always wanted to fly as a kid, but never pursued it. In my senior year at college, they instituted the draft lottery and I got a low number. I figured it would be better to go in as a officer rather than be drafted, so I took the Air Force OTS test and aced it. When they sent me for the physical, they looked at my glasses and said, "Let's make this short and check the eyes first." At the time, you needed 20/40 uncorrected to get in as a pilot. I was 20/40 in one and 20/60 in the other. No amount of squinting did any good. They said I could still be a navigator, but I decided if I wasn't flying it, I didn't want to go. For years, I thought you needed good eyes to be a pilot.

Fast forward a lot of years when my wife and I were on a scuba diving vacation at Walker's Cay in the Bahamas. One night after dinner we were walking around the planes that had flown in and she said, "These guys flew themselves in to go diving? You should look into it." When we got back home, I went to the local airport, got the scoop on becoming a pilot and the rest is history. (She still regrets that remark back on the island.)
 
I kinda stumbled into airborne astronomy from the astronomy side....as it turns out, anything related to aviation has a whole lot of private pilots wandering around. Of course, a couple of ATPs as well (retired from UAL). And then I took a project designing a flight planner for the aircraft and figured out a bunch of stuff about how the planning side works -- but for a 747.

Then, my son started to get into airplanes, really young (like, 2). Not GA at first; it was airliners. I got him a flight simulator (FlightGear -- the price is right) and played around with it myself a bit, too. Then, a few years later, I figured I'd like to try it out for real, asked for flying lessons for Christmas 2010, and took my first intro the following month. A year later, I was a private pilot. My son is still into aviation, but it's not all airliners anymore. Now, he's 8.

So, yes. I was introduced to flying by a preschooler.
 
USAF in the 80's offered free training to us in the HPOIC program, wife said over her dead body, and so did not do it. Fast foward 2011, wife(same one) could not figure out what to give me for my birthday, and gave me a discovery filght. Boy did she ever regret that gift.
 
I'm in my mid-forties, and I drive a lot for both business (mine and my wife's) and recreation. I friend commented on how easy it was to get a pilot's license, and the use he made of his while he still had his physical. I sort of let that slip.

Then a few months later I needed to return a party tent to that friend's hangar, and his buddy took me on a tour of all the neighboring hangars, showing me what GA aircraft were like and telling me (generally) what the acquisition costs were. I started to really think about it.

I took a discovery flight to see if I was OK with it, decided "yep, I don't hate this," and started getting my ducks in a row.

I'm still a student pilot, but it's the travel opportunities that attract me rather than the Angelina Jolie-ish "OMG flying is better than sex" attraction to flight. I've flown commercial since elementary school, I'm jumped out of perfectly good airplanes, and I've sat on the floor of a helicopter with my legs hanging over the side to get places. It's OK, I guess.

But turning a 9 hour drive into a 3-3.5 hour flight? That's something.
 
Sat in my room one day (enlisted in Navy at time) and just decided to do it. Opened phone book and looked up pilot...no, airplane....no, airport....there!

Went down and ran into all the issues CFIs learn not to do. No signage, obscure entrance, signs everywhere to KEEP OUT, met someone who tried to talk me OUT of training. Kept going on about expense and how hard it was.

I left and almost gave up. But figured I'd try one more place. Went to different airport and had a MUCH better experience. Nice open FBO, friendly people, and an introductory flight deal that I took them up on. Went flying that day.
 
Dav8or said:
The point of my long story is, if we want people to take up flying IMO, we need to-

1) Somehow educate the general populous about what is and isn't possible.

2) Invite people onto the ramp where they can look at real airplanes.

3) Do the promo intro flights. They really work.
Click to expand...

Had a boss who had an airplane he used for business transportation. It's his fault.

Looking forward the helping a nephew with his Boy Scout Aviation Merit Badge in the next few weeks. ;)
 
I had a ride in a 170/172 (I don't remember if it was a tail dragger or not, we're talking the summer of 1961 here) when a friend of my dad's took us up for a ride in the Davis/Sacramento area. That was my first time in a plane (between 3rd and 4th grade). Flew commercial across the country in 1969. Took the AFOQT and Pilot and Nav qualifying tests in AFROTC in college (maxed all three). I had built a bunch of model planes growing up. More (lots) commercial travel over the years. Never had the time or money at the same time to learn to fly. Then, in 1999 my wife and I were the high bidders for a sightseeing ride in a fund raiser at church. When the pilot mentioned that we could fly across the state in about 2 hours (as opposed to a 5.5 to 6 hour drive) my wife suggested that maybe it was time I scratched that itch and learned to fly. I wasted no time. A friend in the local amateur radio club was a CFI and the rest is history.
 
A few years ago a friend's dad took me up in his Piper Cub, and then a little later took me up in his Stearman.

The Cub planted the seed, but the Stearman was amazing and finished the job.
 
My dad took me to air shows as a kid, and a friend of my brothers talked about ultralights a lot. Wanted to be a pilot, but heard it was super expensive and figured it was out of my family's budget (it was). During college, started working at a company that does test equipment for embedded systems, especially avionics. That got the bug (and the needed funding) back in me. Then, we hired a guy who was a PPL/IR and I asked him a lot of questions. Then, we hired another guy who had taken lessons years ago, and I asked him more questions. His girlfriend ended up getting him a discovery flight at MWO for one reason or another and he came back raving about it. I mentioned it to my girlfriend, and she got me an intro flight at MWO for my birthday in 2012. I did it and loved it.

Then I found out about MGY and the FBO there had slightly newer planes, the intro flight was cheaper, and it was much closer to home, so I did an intro flight there then signed up shortly thereafter. I kept with it and earned my PPL before my birthday of this year :)

Now to get started on instrument...
 
Dav8or said:
The point of my long story is, if we want people to take up flying IMO, we need to-

1) Somehow educate the general populous about what is and isn't possible.

2) Invite people onto the ramp where they can look at real airplanes.

3) Do the promo intro flights. They really work.
Click to expand...

I bring friends and friends of friends up every chance I get (especially if they are willing to split costs, lol)

And if anyone shows a genuine interest I'll tell them to go take a discovery flight somewhere, because hey discovery flights are cheap! Something I like to compare to a drug dealer giving you a free sample, lol.
 
I've been an "airplane nut" for as long as I can remember, and always wanted to be a pilot. Watched Sky King and Ripcord (anyone remember that one?) and would run outside anytime I heard an airplane nearby, especially the local crop duster, who I'd watch from the end of the field he was spraying. Seems I was always drawing airplanes or building models in my free time back then.

My first flight was with our family doctor, when I was about five years old. He owned a small low-wing plane, most likely a Cherokee. I still recall how tiny the cars and houses appeared from the air, and how the world "fell away" from us as we took off.

One of my uncles was a pilot in the USAF, but he died years before I was born. He was killed in a crash outside San Antonio. He was the only airman in the family I knew of.
 
Sky King, every Saturday morning. I was hooked at a very early age.

Then friends of my older brother (five years older) took me for rides and cemented my desire to one day pursue training. When I discovered a one credit aviation class that prepped you for the written, I was in. Did the first 10 hours as part of that class (a great scam by the local FBO!), then found my own instructor and finished in a good friend's new C172 Hawk XP.
 
Friend of my father took me flying when I was young.

Didn't have much money growing up, so learning to fly was delayed (my work focused on paying for college). When I got a job as a system engineer, that was when I finally had the income to allow me the luxury of learning. In the mid-80's, my company had a flying club of sorts, and some instructors would occasionally do a ground school. That gave me that little extra push to get the written out of the way and start lessons.

I also benefited from a friend who went to ERAU. She became a CFII, but came back north to help take care of her father. The summer of 1987 I had almost exclusive access to her for lessons.
 
Usual early life story, always an airplane nut. Went to air shows, even participated in a Scout Explorer Troop at one point. Had a chance to ride in a big cabin twin once, probably King Air, don't recall exact details outside of how cool it was to hang out in cockpit.

Fast forward to my late 20's and one day I'm walking the halls of work back from lunch and see a bunch of guys in a office with flight material laid out on desks. I walked in and asked about it and one of the guys said, "Mark is a flight instructor and we're going to take lessons."

A few months later I had my ticket. The flying has unfortunately been intermittent over the years. Many multiple year gaps, in one now, mostly due to economics.

My two sons, who have had a chance to fly with me, are really on me to get back in the air so I'm trying to find a method for that now.
 
No aviation history in my family, but my Dad worked for an airline, so we did a lot of flying. I started paying more and more attention to everything that went on outside the ramp, the differences between the planes, etc. Then, I asked to visit the cockpit as a kid...that was pretty much the end of that.

This was in the early to mid-80's. I got to change the heading bug on a SAS DC-9 and the #3 throttle setting on an Alitalia 747 while enroute. Have been deeply in love with aviation ever since.

Now, whenever a family gets near my plane and shows interest, I always ask if their young kids would like to sit inside and check it out. Their eyes light up every single time. Pictures are taken and conversations with the parents get started. I try to talk about the utility of flying...it's something they can understand right away. The actual joy of flying is harder to communicate and harder to relate to, so I spend little time on that and focus on the utility.
 
My dad worked at PT. Mugu for years. During the airshows he would work in the communacations van parked at the base of the tower. I was 6 or 7 and would go and watch. Bob Hoover did his routine and I was hooked. He walked passed me and I said I wanted to fly. The next year I was there again with my dad. After Bob did his routine he walked by us again as I was sitting at the same place. He stopped and asked me and this word for word "young man, I still hope you have the desire to be a pilot still." I was floored he rememberd me, that stuck in my mind and at 19 I started flying. As a kid I was surprised how a pilot took time out to talk to me, the Blues Pilots never even looked at us. As a adult and now know more about Bob that just makes it even better knowing he took the time to talk with a 6 year old kid. It worked.
 
1st Gen, and daughter has no interest, I'll need to work on the granddaughter.

Dad was Flight Engineer on C-124s, then engine mech in the AF. I was always walking the line with him on weekends as he checked on things. Always on a flight line. I was able to include flight training in my freshman year at college, dad passed before I could get home to take him flying.
 
RevDMV said:
Usual early life story, always an airplane nut. Went to air shows, even participated in a Scout Explorer Troop at one point. Had a chance to ride in a big cabin twin once, probably King Air, don't recall exact details outside of how cool it was to hang out in cockpit.

Fast forward to my late 20's and one day I'm walking the halls of work back from lunch and see a bunch of guys in a office with flight material laid out on desks. I walked in and asked about it and one of the guys said, "Mark is a flight instructor and we're going to take lessons."

A few months later I had my ticket. The flying has unfortunately been intermittent over the years. Many multiple year gaps, in one now, mostly due to economics.

My two sons, who have had a chance to fly with me, are really on me to get back in the air so I'm trying to find a method for that now.
Click to expand...


First post.... :cheers:.. Welcome to POA.... and our disease..;)
 
I left home when I was in highschool and finished school working nights at Logan Airport (Boston). I probably wouldn't have graduated, but my boss told me he'd fire me if I quit school. It took a little less than a year, I was 17 when I did graduate. I did actually help cater an occational plane at that job, but that wasn't really it.

I enlisted in the Marine Corps that summer. I just wanted to be a grunt and go to Vietman, but I had test scores high enough to get me in any occupational specialty they had openings in. The recruiter wouldn't hear of it.

The recruiter wanted me to go into computers (this is in 1973), but I was way too smart for that. We went back and forth until I settled on aviation and became a parachute rigger for ejections seats.

After I got out, working around planes was the only thing that didn't bore me. So I went to A&P school. A&P school really introduced me to GA, I haddn't really thought much about planes with props until then. In fact I quit A&P school for a month or so because the airplanes were so anemic compared to fighter & attack jets. Eventually I graduated and found work with Eastern Air Lines.

The rest is the usual story about trying to have a carrier in aviation and stay out of the unemployment line. Eventually I got to where I could affort flying.

It was a real kicker to think back about that whole episode with the recruiter 16 years later. I was working midnights on commuter airplanes at a dumpy repar station (after the Eastern debacle) and going to school days for an Electrical Engineering Degree, to get training very similar to the training I had passed up in the service, and was now breaking my back to get.

They did tell us about that in the service though. If you're gonna be dumb you gotta be tough.
 
Last edited:
My father and his best friend were both aviation nuts and expressed it through model airplanes. I grew up tinkering around a basement filled with models and electronics. His friend lived in an apartment with a closet workshop filled to the top with tools, glue, balsa and engines. Every weekend they went to the flying field and fooled around with the planes, the engines and those radios. Escapements, reeds and galloping ghost. More tuning and range testing than flying but flew they did. I looked forward to the dimestore gliders and rubber models they would get for me to play with.

When I was about 12, and my brother eight, they decided that we would learn to fly RC. In a club of 150, we were the only kids in it and the only ones flying. They bought them, built them and maintained them. We flew and crashed them which is why kids didn't do much RC in the 60s. In our spare time we built and flew everything from microfilm indoor to rockets, handlaunch to Jetco, .010 to .61

I once had a chance to fly with both of them when we were on our way back from a model convention in Toledo. A Ford Trimotor flew by and we followed it to the airfield where we took a flight with Island Air. They were like kids.

My brother never flew full scale but stayed serious with the RC and is a one time AMA pattern champ.

My Dad's friend had become a pretty influential pol. An FBO owner, aware of his interest in aviation offered him flying lessons. He declined but asked that they be given to me and they were. I was 16 but without a drivers license so the first lessons required a bus ride to KAGC. I soloed and logged 20 hours before they shoo'd me away and I went away to college (would have been the Academy but didn't have the eyes to fly).

Anyway, the day I graduated I restarted my lessons and added glider lessons, getting my glider certificate first. Just like with RC, I ended up more attracted to the challenges of silent flight and chased glider racing for many years before returning to airplanes.

It's been a fun ride.
 
Skyking and Whirlybirds. When I was 6, we moved less than 5 miles from airport center at NAS. I even remember when they flew blimps from there. They had the Blue Angels every other year. I'm told I spent a lot of time looking up at the sky, usually when planes went by.
I guess I haven't outgrown it but in 1990, my then wife bought me a discovery hour. I was hooked. After 8 years of flying pc sims, I got the real thing.
And have not stopped since (pouring lots of money into a hole in the sky).
 
I had flown in the back of USAF recce jets for over 5500 hours and got to fly both C-135 and C-130 based aircraft from the right seat just for fun on long missions. It was fun but I never had the time to head over the the aero club on base to work on my license. I was also stationed overseas so it was possible but a little bit more of a challenge. In the mid 90's I was fortunate enough to get selected for an "incentive" ride in a F-16 two seater. It was at once scary and incredibly fun. A 13,000 ft unrestricted climb straight up at midfield will wake you up.

When I got out of the AF life seemed to take over and I just never went to the airport to start training. A confluence of events sort of got me to get my SP certificate. My wife bought me a gift certificate for some aerobatics training for fathers day. The CFI who I went up with was a former AF fighter pilot and a great pilot. He told me about the SP ticket and got me thinking about it. Shortly after that a very good friend who was a year younger than myself and who had young kids was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I saw him try to get to do all the things he wished he had before he would finally succumb. At that moment I realized I needed to do the things I always wanted to do and went about getting my SP cert. I was 45 when I finally completed my SP check ride. It was an incredible feeling of accomplishment. Over the past couple years I have been fortunate enough to buy a LSA and fly around the country on various length cross country flights.

I have done what I can to try and encourage others to get into the air and enjoy the freedom of flight. It is incredibly liberating and satisfying to get in the plane and say goodbye to the troubles on the ground.

Carl
 
Had my head "in the clouds" as long as I can remember. Thought about doing the military route back in the days when eyesight was a Big Deal(TM) and RK hadn't even been developed yet, let alone lasers. Decided that wasn't going to work.

Went off to college as a music major. Realized I wasn't good enough to make it big, and didn't want to be a music teacher for life. Dropped out, moved to Chicago for three months, did hard labor outdoors in January, decided I wasn't going to appreciate that lifestyle too much either moved back to Denver.

Enrolled in a Pro Aviation degree at Metro State. Paid my own way through three years, and met my first CFI through Ham Radio (thank GOD! Learning later about the variable quality of CFIs and the "young leading the younger" syndrome in college programs, I was soooo lucky to find a seriously highly qualified CFI for my first one... He's been a lifelong friend, as well...) and basically ran out of money and time all at once in my third year or so. Thankfully also paid cash for everything and didn't go the $100K student loan (Embry-Riddle heh) route.

Always worked. Worked three jobs and held down full time school credits. Had taken the test and had an interview to become a State Patrol dispatcher and had done an internship as a dispatcher for a Sheriff's department, had a gas station job, a baggage tossing job at Continental, a seasonal USPS mail tossing job, and a conference call operator job. That's right, operator. Back when we used those ya know? Heh. Conference calls were $0.50/min per line with a $20 setup charge back then! Ha.

THAT job ended up being the one that launched my career. Huge growth company, couldn't find technicians, hired four of us out of Operations to learn their systems and do call center tech support, and the rest is history... Field Engineer, moved back in-house as a tier 4 Product Support Engineer charged with a new product launch, NOC Manager, left to take another Product Support Engineering job for a telecom equipment manufacturer, Senior Network and Data Center Engineer for a Data Center/Co-Location/ISP company, various sysadmin roles, and support roles for telecom, audio and video conferencing on a large scale, and Unix/Linux... And that's what I still do today. I'm the dude who keeps stuff running, has seen WAY bigger scale than the stuff that's keeping these little guys I work for now, awake at night, and just smiles and waits for the inevitable decisions that always take a while to get made... Heh. ("Yes, it's a bad idea to run the whole company on one webserver internally. No, it's not that scary to split it. Want me to show you how?") ;)

While all that was going on, I flew for a number of years for fun until finances again caught up with me (well, us really... we got a whole lot stupid with credit cards once upon a time, long term, one of the best things that ever happened to us, we've been cash and carry for close to 20 years now and hate debt with a passion), and stopped for eight. Various rental places. Some glider time, some tailwheel time, never got serious about finishing either rating, but enjoyed the hell out of both. Eventually a neighbor of my dad's asked if I'd be interested in co-ownership of the 182, and that is the aviation side of the story.
 
I have no idea....I was wrestling professionally for Chaotic Wrestling in North Andover, MA and one day I was sitting on the couch and said to my aunt "you know, when I was a kid, I thought it would be cool to be a pilot...I wonder how hard that is to do..."

The next week I was at KASH trying to figure out how to get through the gate so I could find Air Direct Airways and take my first lesson in N7242G (the nice plane).

My adventurous side disappeared after the kiddo was born.
 
SkyHog said:
I have no idea....I was wrestling professionally for Chaotic Wrestling in North Andover, MA and one day I was sitting on the couch and said to my aunt "you know, when I was a kid, I thought it would be cool to be a pilot...I wonder how hard that is to do..."

The next week I was at KASH trying to figure out how to get through the gate so I could find Air Direct Airways and take my first lesson in N7242G (the nice plane).

My adventurous side disappeared after the kiddo was born.
Click to expand...
Back to WWE wrestling?
 
In the mid-90's I visited a friend, and his little brother was a CFI and wanted to know if we wanted to go flying in a school 172. Sure! We got to the airport and he asked if I wanted to sit in the pilots seat and fly some. Um....yeah, ok. That was a blast, but I didn't have the time/resources at that time to fly.

Fast forward 7 years, and another buddy told me he recently got his PPL and IR and aksed me to go flying. Sure! Just right seat passenger this time, but I really enjoyed the flight. This time I had the resources to fly and started lessons a week or two after that flight.
 
Flying, American Modeler, and Air Progress were available in my home town drugstore and I started reading them faithfully from about the age of six.
 
Dad was a 747 pilot but discouraged my brothers and I from an aviation career...and he didn't like small planes. He passed away about 6 years ago.

Fast forward to 2012. My wife and I are part of a group of 12 that are renting three C182s and flying around southern Africa for 3 weeks on a self-fly Safari trip. Our plane's pilot is a friend who is a 777 Captain.

I had head the story of the 80-year-old lady whose husband had died at the controls and she was able to land their twin (collapsed the gear and bent both props) and walk away from it. I figured it would be good for me to know how to land.

I called a flight school here and asked for a condensed how-to-land course. I did 3.5 hours with 11 landings which included some airwork as well. In Africa I got to fly about 1/3 of the time (no t/o or landing of course). After getting back to the US, I signed up for "real" lessons.

Now that I am flying a 182, I sometimes wonder if I would have been able to land that plane in Africa. I think I'd have done at least as well as that 80-year-old-lady with my vast experience of 3.5 hours. ;)
 
Dad was FSS before the A in automated came about. Back then stations were everywhere, pilots got face to face briefs and they knew specialists by name. I'd ocassionaly go to work with Dad and bum rides with pilots he knew. That's what got me into GA.

As a kid the Army NG would fly Cobras and Hueys to my school each year. Pilots told me I could be a pilot right out of high school. Recruiter said that I had to go enlisted and that there was no way we're gonna allow a kid to fly a multi-million dollar aircraft right out of high school. That was my "Rudy" moment. Enlisted in Marines for ATC with the hopes of switching Army flight training but also using ATC to fall back on. Got accepted to Army flight training the same day I had a tower job interview. Chose flight training and never looked back.

Luckily I was exposed to both GA and military aviation as a kid. Without that up close, hands on exposure, I doubt I'd be where I am today.
 
Last edited:
I was a transportation junkie. I had pictures of airplanes, trains, ships, cars all over my room. I built fake cockpits out of cardboard boxes with hand drawn instruments. My first flight was one of my father's law clients (he was representing Transcarribean Airways pilots when American was acquiring them). One of their flight engineers lived near us and had a Skyhawk. My father got to fly right seat with my brother and me in the back. THen my mother and my two sisters. Then I got a chance to fly right seat.

Somewhere I still have the pictures of my childhood home I took out the window of that first flight.
 
I was going to school for aerospace engineering and took a flight test class. The school hired an instructor/pilot and we did some tests with a piper warrior. I got talking to the guy and started lessons with him and i was hooked. 6 years later, still at it. Truly a life changing experience to meet that guy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top