What attracted you to aviation

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Rwy in Sight
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What attracted you to aviation

#1 Post by Rwy in Sight » Sat Apr 02, 2016 8:46 pm

In thread about ... threads and the site I proposed to start a thread what attracted us to aviation. I understand there is a thread running about the people lucky enough to be pilots managed to do it.

But for us who are either SLF, working in a ground job with the airline or with an Air Force etc how did we end up like the industry so much to register in this site to speak about aviation in our spare time.

Unfortunately I don't know how early I discovered I liked airplanes and air travel - so I will give my input when I can pinpoint the answers.

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Re: What attracted you to aviation

#2 Post by ian16th » Sun Apr 03, 2016 8:25 pm

In 1952, I joined the RAF. At this time the RAF had a lot of flying thinggies and for the next 13 years I helped to keep them working.
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Re: What attracted you to aviation

#3 Post by 500N » Sun Apr 03, 2016 8:57 pm

As a kid, used to watch the RAF Bombing on The Wash which I found fascinating.
As a teenager, used to watch in awe, Concorde take off from some airfield, I think where it was built.
Then learned my father was part of the team that won the Queens award for industry for something
to do with Titanium, which allowed mass production or something and of course was or is used in engines.

Couldn't be a pilot due to colour blindness so the Army side was it and managed to get into a unit where we got to fly in Caribou's,
Herc's, Helicopters and have Air force support like F-111 bombing and photo recon when we requested it.

Only time I have flown an aircraft was an Aerobatic one when taken up by a RAAF Herc pilot who did all the
Aerobatic maneuvers and then gave me the chance to do them all which was one hell of a lot of fun and confirmed
I should have tried to become a pilot.

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Re: What attracted you to aviation

#4 Post by Ex-Ascot » Mon Apr 04, 2016 10:36 am

Always wanted to be an airline pilot. The money, the bird pulling gold braid. Posing striding through airport terminals with 10 girls in tow tottering on their high heels. Staying at five star hotels all around the world lying by the pool with the aforementioned 10 girls in skimpy bikinis. Free travel for holidays to lie on beaches on islands in Greece or go on luxury safari holidays in Africa. Oh and play with a huge hi tech mulit million pound aircraft.

After 16 years in the Royal Air Force I got there. Tired all the time. So knackered the girls had to push me in a wheel chair through the terminal. Didn't care what star hotel it was as long as it had a bed. No time to lie by the pool, half the 'girls' were woofters. Holidays were spent sleeping.

Now I holiday, awake, all year on my pensions.
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Re: What attracted you to aviation

#5 Post by A Lutra Continua » Mon Apr 04, 2016 10:49 am

I wanted the glamour of flying tired old workhorses in shitholes around the world.

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Re: What attracted you to aviation

#6 Post by Pinky the pilot » Mon Apr 04, 2016 3:04 pm

I just wanted to have a job that I wanted to go to and actually loved doing! That way it really wasn't work! :-bd

Little did I realise that I would after only a few years in the Industry, actually crash out; Literally! :(( X(

Still, three months every year in Japan launching Japanese 'Grider Pirots' :D keeps me from really being pissed off.

Plus, I'm still an optimist.
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Re: What attracted you to aviation

#7 Post by Slasher » Sat Aug 20, 2016 8:00 pm

From a RAAF airport fence I saw Spits take off and perform at an air show and from then on wanted to be a pilot. I think I was 4.

In the intervening million years since then, its still my intention to eventually strap a Spitfire to my butt and fly the arse off it.

[bbvideo=560,315]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tTZAfXta7ww[/bbvideo]

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Re: What attracted you to aviation

#8 Post by Sisemen » Sun Aug 21, 2016 2:45 am

It was the access to vast wealth, gorgeous totty, hero-worship, and a macho uniform. So I joined the RAF.

(You really didn’t expect a happy ending did you?)

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Re: What attracted you to aviation

#9 Post by unifoxos » Sun Aug 21, 2016 8:28 am

Father was in the RAF in the war (WWII), ground crew not flying, but I suppose that aroused my interest, especially his stories about the camaraderie, and his awe of the pilots. Read all the Biggles books and decided I wanted to fly fighters. Then I caught a disease that meant I'd never be able to get paid for flying, but I was still determined to fly although I had to wait until I was about 30 to get together enough money for a PPL course.
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Re: What attracted you to aviation

#10 Post by Slasher » Sat Oct 08, 2016 9:33 am

As has been asked to a few of us at some stage...

Would you've signed up with the RAF in 1939 knowing you were headed to Fighter Command...

I'd have to be honest and say yep without hesitation...


...AS LONG AS I DIDNT KNOW WTF I WAS GOING TO BE IN FOR! :-o

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Re: What attracted you to aviation

#11 Post by om15 » Sun Oct 09, 2016 5:06 pm

The attraction of one pound eighteen shillings a week and a pair of boots.
Forty eight years later still trying to understand it all, however I would do the same again tomorrow.

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Re: What attracted you to aviation

#12 Post by Ex-Ascot » Sun Oct 09, 2016 5:35 pm

om15 as an Officer Cadet in 1978 my pay didn't even cover my mess bill. Those boots were OK but the flying boots issued later leaked like sieves. And, yes no regrets.

Slasher, I sure would have done. Probably would have ended up with Bomber Harris' mob though due to my requirements of a few more people on board to help me out.
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Re: What attracted you to aviation

#13 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Mon Oct 10, 2016 8:18 am

Think I've recorded this elsewhere ? Sorry for the repeat if so.

HM Queen Liz the 2nd demanded my presence for National Service, without the option. Approached the RAF Condemning Officer ( not Recruiting, that bit had been done for him by a Call-Up Notice in a brown envelope. ) and insisted that I be assigned to the RAF Photo. Section, having just spent 4 years apprenticeship ( i.e. slave wages ) for my future career in that occupation. No way said the Hofficer, got to sign here for 10 years servitude for that option, how about becoming a pilot ? ROTFL and finally stopped to say - 10 years for a photographer ? then it must be a Life Sentence for a pilot? No way. It was then explained that the UK had signed some agreement to let Canada train pilots under a NATO scheme, and needed cannon fodder every now and again to meet the commitment, nothing lost having a go.

Eventually posted to Canada for flying training on the mighty Harvard MkII - never could decide if the RAF sent their best students, to show the World what the RAF was made of, or their worst to get us out of their hair ?

Returned from Canada quite liking this flying game, the sharp end of a Hunter, or Canberra, being more appealing than returning to stick ones' head under a black cloth to take a photograph of a wedding party on a wet Saturday afternoon, and applied to sign on for Life. No way, said the RAF, Duncan Sandys, the then Defence Minister, has decreed that UK needs no pilots from now on, rockets are the way forward so we're not going to let you play with our aeroplanes anymore, and furthermore your anticipated weekend fun in the Auxilliary Air Force after Nat. Service is cancelled, and how about pissing off before the end of your two years, to save us some money ?

Hearing of some airline called BOAC requiring a fistful of pilots to satisfy a new Union demand to have 3 pilots on every flight deck, I told Duncan Sandys that his money, uniform and free board, would keep me alive whilst I gained my UK CPL to satisfy BOAC, I stayed on as an Assistant Adjutant at RAF Scampton, which was building up as a Vulcan base, crewed by existing pilots, no new ones required. CPL gained I marched over to BOAC who initially made me a Navigator. The rest is history. Thank you Auntie Betty ( still have your uniform, somewhere ) People look for the Men In White Coats when I tell them that I used to navigate the Boeing 707 with a sextant. A student pilot recently asked me what a sextant was, and only yesterday, performing some fuel calculation on the back of an E6B "calculator", one backed nervously out of the room, eyes glued fast to his iPhone. One could weep.

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Re: What attracted you to aviation

#14 Post by Ex-Ascot » Mon Oct 10, 2016 10:56 am

Only the very best got to do exchange postings with the USAF. They used to send us their dross, to No. 10 Sqn anyway. We complained. They sent us this muscle bound blue eyed American football player who was an absolute ace. The stewardesses were all weak at the knees when they saw him (out of bounds to them of course). After he went back we heard that he had left the USAF and was living with his boy friend in San Francisco. =))

The nav and his sextant was the third qualifying nav aid that allowed us on the tracks across the pond.
'Yes, Madam, I am drunk, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.' Sir Winston Churchill.

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Re: What attracted you to aviation

#15 Post by AtomKraft » Tue Jun 12, 2018 7:07 am

In my case, it was all a misunderstanding.
I actually wanted to be Troy Tempest, who some of you will remember was captain of Stingray, and got to hang around with the beautiful Marina. She's a lovely chick, who looks fantastic but never speaks.
If you check out pics of Capt. Tempest, you'll see his uniform with the four rings around the cuffs.
It was 1964, I was only four, and Stingray looks very like a plane. I had a model of it and zoomed it around like a jet.

How was I to know the damn thing was a submarine?

I blame Gerry Anderson 'til this very day.....but not much.

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