What were YOU doing at 14 y/o?

brcase said:
Changing sprinkler lines twice a day.
Driving Tractor in the Cherry Orchards, running the Disk, while my Dad ran the Plow,
Driving the Grain Truck during harvest
Getting off the Bus, grabbing the shotgun and shooting two pheasants for supper (that took 20 minutes max usually)
Building flying and crashing, RC Airplanes and Model Rockets
Rebuilding a Cushman Scooter
Reading lots of books, usually flying related books.
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Ditto on rebuilding a Cushman Scooter -- a 1947 model which I loved (not the one below)

Various other things including reading lots of science fiction. Learned late in life it wasn't fiction.

Student pilot

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At 14 I was hanging at our local airport, fishing, at football practice or thinking about flying, fishing or football.
 
But I would be more impressed if the 14-year-old has managed to pay for it all too. Because in the end, isn’t that the biggest part of the accomplishment. 14 year olds flying gliders.
In a similar vein, back in the 80s there was a girl by the name of Tonya Eibee, who circumnavigated at age 16. Which is no small feat but her dad paid for the boat and paid for all of her expenses and everything. He flew to each port to deliver spares and food and extra money.
 
14 was the first summer of my 38 year framing career. Made enough money to retire and take a flying job.
 
Flying and fixing cars with my dad, building computers for flight sim and VATSIM, learning Java/PHP/MySQL, cooking a lot with my mom. Normal nerd stuff
 
I was really impressed by that girl. Good for her, something she will remember forever. If she wants to, she will have a long life of flying ahead.

At 14 I was... pre occupied with the opposite sex, starting to get into partying (Sober almost 10 years now), working on a farm and the local flight school. Those were very carefree days.
 
Painting fences, picking up rocks, cutting the lawn, pulling a drag harrow around the riding ring, mucking out stalls, and earning enough money to buy a Honda CL175.

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Hailing hay. $2/hour for Dad. 4 cents per bale custom. Doing real cowboy work. Riding horses to push cattle into corrals so we could work them. Hand Threw the younger calves so we could work them. They all got dehorned and branded. The bulls were turned into steers unless they were registered Hereford.

Helped with the wheat harvest and planning. Did a lot of plowing.

On really hot days we stayed inside and I read a lot. A lot of Robert Louis Stevenson. Mutiny on the Bounty. Western stories including The Virginian.

I also built and flew some U-Control planes, mostly Cox 0.049 powered.

And in my spare time, I went to the bathroom.

Kansa is not great for model airplanes. A light breeze there is 20 MPH. They chain the real airplanes down there.

I was also milking half the milk cow; my older brother milked the other half.

I had a pony to ride but my legs were so long my feet almost dragged the ground.

I was a budding civil engineer. We had small creek about 1/2 mile from the house. One of my younger brothers helped me build a small earthen dam across it, but it washed out with the next gully washer. Then I built a rock dam that the adults appreciated. It stood until the government built a conservation dam in pretty much the same area. The dam and the lake pretty much took most of our bottom land in that location. We kept it private and closed off access from the gravel road to keep psychopaths from running up and down the dam.
 
I met Cadence Bomgardner the other day for a photoshoot. She has a very impressive aviation resume for an 18 year old. In the short time I spent with her, I was impressed. Not only is she humble and nice, she can fly! She flew formation very well.

As far as what I was doing at 14... washing airplanes for rides!
 
Zeldman said:
You can get paid for that.??

My dad told me it was just part of having animals...
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getting paid anything to hail hay is just stealing from your employer :)

(I also liked that it is so windy in Kansas that the "s" blew away double grin)

(yes, I know they were typos, but I was amused...)
 
MauleSkinner said:
I though it was long enough ago when there was only one Kansa, not multiple Kansas.
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Yeah, it was kansa -> kansas and arkansas, like a matter/anti-matter thing to keep the world from flying apart at that seam. All the tension is why the land is flat and there are so many tornadoes and musicals. The dirt is held down by tractors and wells.
 
Dad was paying high school kids $2 hour to HAUL hay so they paid us that to keep the money in the family and go into our college funds.

There used to be an Arkansas City (Are-Kansas) but they got tired of non-Kansans pronouncing it(Are-Can-Saw) that they changed it to Ark City. And, no, there aren’t only two of each species in that town! Mom, and a bunch of non-kissing cousins were raised there. That’s why I know that trivia.
 
Zeldman said:
You can get paid for that.??

My dad told me it was just part of having animals...
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If they're not your animals, you should get paid. I never rode those dagnabbit horses, but I sure did clean out their stalls, probably 10 times as often as my goof off sister, who was the one who rode, did.
 
FormerHangie said:
If they're not your animals, you should get paid. I never rode those dagnabbit horses, but I sure did clean out their stalls, probably 10 times as often as my goof off sister, who was the one who rode, did.
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but you aren't bitter, eh?
 
I was impressed by Alina Scott, the girl in the video. A darn good pilot, and speaker, too.
 
Dishing on the Beatles, although I might have already outgrown that by the time I turned 13. Other than that, it was too long ago for me to remember what I was doing.
 
At 14, I built my first hang gliders out of bamboo poles, duct tape, 6 mil polyethylene tarps and clothesline with turnbuckles. They didn't fly very well. I tried both black and clear plastic tarps. The color didn't make any difference.

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In 2019 a 14 y/o named H. Scott flew an Aerolite103 ~700 miles from VA to OSH. But it was a male named Henry so I guess it wasn't that big a deal.
 
I was mechanical - building flying cars.

And no, I wasn't any good at it, ok.
 
martym said:
In 2019 a 14 y/o named H. Scott flew an Aerolite103 ~700 miles from VA to OSH. But it was a male named Henry so I guess it wasn't that big a deal.
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Also just a few years before everyone and their brother were making YT videos...
 
martym said:
In 2019 a 14 y/o named H. Scott flew an Aerolite103 ~700 miles from VA to OSH. But it was a male named Henry so I guess it wasn't that big a deal.
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It would be national headlines if he declared himself a female and didn't know which bathroom to use... :frown2:
 
bflynn said:
I was mechanical - building flying cars.

And no, I wasn't any good at it, ok.
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These days, it doesn't matter how good it is, it only matters how good the artist's rendering is, and how you feel about raising venture capital for imaginary aircraft...
 
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