For me it was visiting a DL 757-200 cockpit at DAB

When I first travel at 8 years old (I think, maybe 7 years old LOL) in a airplane I just got the passion. Never forget the first time that I traveled in a beauty 737-200 from the retired VASP like this one:

https://www.airliners.net/photo/VASP/Boeing-737-2A1/1615880.

Hello,

I think it was back in 1989 when I saw on the newspaper that an Independent Air 707 crashed on Santa Maria Island, Azores, Portugal

I make thhought about those big.....metal things flying...amazing.

Ever since the feeling grew and.

Before internet and as I was young at the time, my only aeronautical information feed was a half a page on a Friday on a paper.

Old times!!

Have a great life!!

When i was about 5 or 6 years old (early 90s), my father was a ramp agent for AA here in AUS when Mueller was Austin's airport. He'd take me to work and drive me around on the tug between flights. I'd follow him around all night in and out of planes and the staff break area. At the time, AA was using DC-10s between DFW and AUS a few times daily. Recall seeing the hot fumes coming out of the tail engine of a DC-10 as it taxiied away from the gate. Those days sealed the passion for me.

jonnyclam123 wrote:

For me it was visiting a DL 757-200 cockpit at DAB

Good question, I don't really know. I've always liked Concorde and got to know it quite well.

Not really much into the modern airliners, they don't interest me much. These days I'm only really around airports when I'm going through them, but that is pulling around luggage and bike-bag, and I'm always close to the baggage weight limits then even with frugal packing, so taking 4-5kg of camera and lenses is out of the question.

So I've sort of drifted away from the hobby part of aviation, though I can still be found around the local branch of RAeS (some of you will know what it is).

I found my calling and have never been happier.

Discovering this website

Seeing the old North Central Convair 580’s taxing up to the terminal in MKE in the late 70’s. I was then hooked.

I have always been mildly interested as I flew alot growing up, really started getting into it when I became obsessed with the disapperance of MH370 back in 2014.

It all started with my first flight. It was a Sun Country "before they stranded people in Mexico" flight from MSP-MCO-MSP It was a really good flight and crew and once we landed in MCO the CA asked if it was my first flight and he showed the the flight deck and told me what certain buttons do. Ever since then I have been hooked

My dad was an avgeek I suppose because he liked to take me to the airport when I was like 4 years old. I still remember standing behind the fence at Wilmington IAP and getting sand blown in my eyes as a Piedmont 727 taxied away from the terminal area.

Building airliner models (Aurora box-scale) in the mid-70s. In '76 I flew in my first airliners that I can remember (flew in '68 and '71 but no memory of those flights) and I've had a passion for the airline industry ever since.

My dad, mostly. He worked as a mechanic and later a flight engineer for Cruzeiro, when he was around my age. Eventually left the industry for something else, but the passion stayed there. Ever since I was a small child, he'd take me to watch planes land and take off at our local airports. To add to that, my uncle (his brother) has been a captain for decades. Spotting brought me back to it, and has kept me around ever since.

I, like every kid, was entranced by planes and the airport. I guess I just never "grew" out of it. My friend got me FS2004 for my 8th birthday and that was all she wrote.

Taking my uncle and autie to the airport with my parents...I was aged 7 or so, and I remember being completely impressed by the way planes would "slowly" point their nose and lift up to the sky. Since then, I never have enough of it !

I've always had a love of aviation. When I was an infant, my mom used to have to put me in the window to get sunlight, and she said that every single time a plane went by, I would watch it until I couldn't see it anymore. One of my first memories was flying on a 1900 from JAX to TPA to visit my grandmother, and the flight crew giving me a pair of wings. I wore those things constantly and for every flight. When we started flying WN for those trips, I got super excited when I saw the original California One pulling onto gate and realizing that we would be flying in it!

I've loved planes for as long as I can remember. When I was a little kid traveling on a plane was hands down my favorite thing in the whole world. Planes are the most amazing machines humans have created IMO. It's shocking how taken for granted they are by the general public.

I grew up incredibly close to the airport (it's like less than 4 km from my house), so my days were filled with the experience of seeing planes taking off. It was mostly 737s, but on certain occasion includes A300s, DC-10s & the odd 747 freighter. Probably even a DC-8 once in a while, but I didn't remember. Additionally my father worked in composite research at the local university so for work he had subscribed to Flight International. At age 9 I would often pick up a copy that he brought home with him and just read it through.

But what got me really hooked was when my uncle introduced me to MSFS5. After that, planes are all that I can think of.

seeing 5 B-25 Mitchells Flying around on a film shoot (late 70’s) then being allowed to walk round them at Bovingdon Airfield UK. Absolutely hooked me.

It must have been around 40 years ago, but I can remember this moment like it was last week: when I was like 8 or 9 years old, my parents took me to Schiphol (AMS) airport, only 25 km from our home, to wave goodbye to friends or family who went on holiday to Portugal. Through an airbridge they stepped into a TAP Portugal B727 that was parked right in front of us, we were standing a bit higher, on the promenade deck. I was waving at the aircraft and its passengers when the Portuguese captain slided his cockpit window open, looked in my direction and waved at me. Still see him in front of me: he had RayBan glasses and he looked rather cool. From that moment on, I wanted to become a pilot (which, unfortunately, never materialised). The engine start during pushback was a very noisy and smoky experience. I remember seeing the 727 slowly rolling off to the runway and saw it thundering away into the sky minutes later. It was the kind of engine thunder that you could feel in your stomach. Funny thing is that can't remember who those friends or family members were, but that I still remember the aircraft type and airline they traveled on... After the TAP departed, I saw an EL AL B707 being pushed back right in front of me, possibly a -400. I was very impressed by it.

Back then, you could easily park your car very close to the terminal. Adjacent to the car park there was an aircraft parking spot where three KLM 747-200s were positioned, with their APU's screaming, their tails almost above your head, you could get really close.

From that day on, I read all aviation books that I could find at the local library, and I frequently went to a spot close to one of the runways ('Zwanenburgbaan') with my father to watch the airliners come in and depart. Back then, there was an enormous variety of aircraft, much more than today. Today, 75% of the short-haul aircraft you see is either a 737 or an A320 series, but back then, we had F27s, F28s, Viscounts, BAC 1-11s, Caravelles, Tridents, DC9s, 727s, 737-200s and Tu-134s, all in that same short-haul category. Much more variety. I always hoped to see a 747, L-1011 or DC-10 when I was standing next to the runway, and I remember feeling a slight disappointment more than once when it was "just another Trident" that turned onto the runway to take off or when the distant landing lights and cloud of black smoke that appeared above the threshold turned out to be "only" a 727. How much I would love to see and hear those old jets again... The 707s and the DC8, long and short, were still a common sight back then. I also vaguely remember seeing an intriguing four-holer that I couldn't identify back then: "hey, that isn't a DC8....but it isn't a 707 either..." I was really puzzled. It carried "Spantax" titles and it was particularly smoky and noisy. Many years later, I realised that it must have been a Convair CV-990 that I saw...

My father was a merchant marine enginear and he used to take me with him when he was going to the shipping company’s offices. It was don town Peireus so the place was full of shipping and travel agencies where they used to place big aircraft models in airliners colours. It should have been one of these models that I saw and asked for one and since I got the first I stuck.
More over when I was even younger my parents used to drive me around the airport area in Hellinikon, Athens to make me sleep but we also used to pick my father up or drop him of any timehe was back or leaving for a travel.
Anyway I was no more than 5 and I still remember a huge aircraft toy they got me and how I was begging for model aircrafts and saying that when I grow up I would become a pilot. I didn’t but the love remains and every single time I hear an aircraft I rise my eyes to the sky and try to spot it.

The first flight I can remember was when I was 5. On board a United 737-300 from OKC-Denver back. It was a sunny afternoon in OKC, but was cloudy in Denver. I don’t remember the flight at all, other than taxiing out to the runway and landing in Denver. I remember emerging from the clouds to see all of the airplanes lined up parked at the concourses. That was an influential and very impressed memory of mine.

The second flight was Denver to SNA. I don’t remember that flight at all except for approaching Orange County. I remember flying over the water and eventually flying over all of the houses with pools. On the return I vividly remember an evening arrival into Denver - flying over the mountains as the sky turned orange and the clouds cast their shadows. I don’t remember the connecting flight to OKC. I was probably tired and fell asleep.

That trip piqued my interest, set the hook in. It wasn’t until years later that the hook was actually reeled in. I believe a combination of that trip as well as going to a few air shows really got my interest pumping. By 2005 I joined this website and that fueled things further. I now work for United, and have been with them for close to 7 years. I don’t always love my job, but I love being in the industry that I love - even if the industry doesn’t always love me.

When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I took my first flight from MCO to MIA in the early 70s when MCO was known as the Orlando Jetport and the terminal was inside an old WWII missile hangar. I thought it was the most amazing experience. Then for some reason, I went on to high school, college, my career, and forgot about my fascination with aviation. In 1999, I went online one day and discovered MS FS '98, and it all came rushing back.

vcruvinel wrote:

When I first travel at 8 years old

Same here, but my flight was on a Delta L-1011 SJU-MCO lol

And my mom had Emmanuel's beautiful ballads on all the way to the airport..what a day!!!!

My Dad was taking flying lessons out of Lost Nation Airport in Willoughby, Ohio, back in the late 60's when a few single engine planes had accidents that scared my Mom so she asked him to stop before he got his Private. As I grew up we were always flying on vacations in B707's or DC9's and I was hooked as an aviation lover.....not quite a geek just yet. We moved to Ft. Myers, Florida, (warm weather....YES) and we had a next door neighbor who owned a C172. He'd take me flying and one day asked if I ever thought of getting a pilots license to which I said no, but it got me to think about it and soon after I was working as a lineman at Page Field (FMY). After graduation from high school went off to LeTourneau College in Longview, Texas, and got started taking Private Ground School as a Freshman followed soon by my first flying lessons. When school ended in May I went home and finished my Private ticket at FMY.

An ole sage at Ft. Myers Flight Service Station who I'd gotten to know while getting my weather briefings asked what I wanted to do for a career and I told him fly for an airline or corporate operator. Thankfully he was indeed a sage and told me with number of high time military pilots exiting the military after the war that my chance of landing one of those jobs was slim so he suggested becoming a military controller which I did. Four years at Ft. Bragg, N.C., in the GCA and then hiring in the FAA soon after leaving the military and the rest is history. Thrity-six years working for the feds (military and FAA time) spending the last 28 of them at IAH plus about 1,000 hours of flying has given me wonderful experiences, memories, great friends, outstanding retirement and much more. Now I'm a full fledged AV Geek!

I always loved planes and all, but the AA dehub of STL really got me into following avaition

Oops. I meant MCO was called McCoy Jetport back then. Oh well, same fabulous experience. I've been flying home-based sims for nearly 20 years. Did my first glider flight in 2016 from right near MCO. Thought it was absolutely fabulous except for the nausea. Still haven't gotten my PPL. Maybe one day...

I got interested in aviation when I went to AMS for the first time in 1980 when I was 6 years old. The blue 747’s and the smell of jet fuel really had an impact on me.

Got into aviation when I was little, probably at around age 3-4. i would only get to fly once a year which was every summer to visit my grandparents in Southern NH and would fly PIT-MHT back when US had a nonstop during the hub. Since I flew way less than many other people, aviation was something that I would rarely get to see and would cherish every opportunity I got to fly. Experiencing it was unlike anything else to me.

I still barely get to fly much, usually twice a year maximum either to MCO/TPA/FLL for vacation or to BOS visiting family. But nowadays I go to university only a few minutes away from my local airport and get to photograph arrivals and departures whenever I want. I even got a job recently where I get to be around airliners on a weekly basis.

I remember when I was a very young lad, I'd just seen Star Wars in the theatre - being such a young boy, it pretty much became my childhood. Anyway, I was with my parents shopping at Eaton's in Toronto and I needed a beach towel. So I saw this awesome Star Wars towel and really, really wanted it. My mom picked out another one, it had a British Airways DC10 and Concorde on it and she really wanted me to get that one - I didn't like it, I wasn't into planes, I was into Star Wars. But my mom twisted my arm and said, maybe one day I'll be a pilot and then I'll really appreciate the towel. I told her no way - I'd never want to be a pilot (I wanted to be a farmer at the time ).

Well, mom's surely do know best. A few years after that, we flew YVR-LHR-DUS on an AC L1011, I got to spend most of the time upfront in the cockpit, sit in the right seat and I was hooked ever since then. I went back to my seat and said thank's to my mom for the towel and she was right.

Sadly, I never did finish my commercial (but did get my PPL) but the love of aviation is because of my mom. I just wish I would have gone all the way and really made her proud.

My grandfather was ex-RAF and was very passionate about aircraft. He always bought me die cast airplanes when I went to visit him...that was one early start. I’ll always remember going to see the Lancaster with him at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum at YHM, what an experience as we walked around it and he explained what every was and how it worked. I have a picture of him and I playing with a GI Joe aircraft when I was 8 or so and I distinctly remember him telling me why it’s design would not allow it to fly in real life

My other grandfather worked in Canada’s Naval Air Arm on choppers and I have lots of great memories with him as well explaining how they work, going to airshows etc.

I grew up in the Greater Toronto Area so when my dad wanted to get us out of the apartment for a day to give my mom a break we would park on Airport Road at the end of Runways 24L/R and watch the planes land above us...what a thrill as a 3-5 year old!

I had a few cockpit visits as a kid too which helped...I remember visiting the cockpit of an Air Canada B727 from YHZ-YYZ holding the toy Air Canada 727 my parents had just bought me...the crew did a great job of making a big fuss about my toy and how great it was that my aircraft matched theirs!

Thanks for the opportunity to reminisce!

I lived under the approach path for LAX for a couple of years when I was 7 and that really got me into liking planes. Next X-Mas my mom got me FS98 and it went from there. My mom would go out of her way to take me to the Inn N Out to see planes take off.

I lived in Venezuela, and my family moved to Miami. My first flight was VLN-CUR-MIA on an Insel Air Md-80 and an American 757-200 in 2004.

When I moved from Zimbabwe to Oz in 2003, I flew a 747-400 from JNB-SYD. It was my first time flying on an airplane aswell. 9 months later as an 11 year old, I flew the 747-300 to AKL and set on a window seat. Both flights were immersive for me and got me into aviation. Thank you Boeing for making the 747.

I dunno really....

I have always been into trucks (don’t know why and I still am (sort of)). When I was about 10/11 I flew to Hong Kong and just about the only thing I can remember from that trip was taking off at night in the rain, with the water going horizontally across my window.

Whilst in HKG, I met one of my relatives and found out that he was a Cathay Pacific pilot/ training captain and then I learned that another relative worked on BA Concordes.

I slowly built up a collection of aircraft models and now I can’t get away from planes......

I could have went either way I loved trains and planes. .. My uncle was a Captain for Trans Caribbean which folded into American Airlines I remember going to the airport in the early 70's and was just enamored by the 707's 727's. If I had known what I know now I would have gone the railroad route. The airline industry has been a roller coaster ride in my 32 year career. I could care less about airplanes now I just want to retire could care less if I ever flew again.

I grew up wanting to fly, wanting to be around airplanes, and far too poor to do so. I got an airplane ride as a boy scout. I went to a merit-badge "pow-wow" and one of the merit badges I completed was the aviation merit badge. The instructor made an enticing offer; for every boy that finished his merit badge, an airplane ride as a reward. When I showed up for the flight on the appointed night, I was the only boy, so the pilot took my mother, my brother, and me. I joined the civil air patrol as a cadet (somewhat like the boy scouts, but aviation), and the deputy commander of cadets also made an offer: pay for the airplane and he'd donate his time to instruct free of charge. I solo'd at 16, did my private pilot at 17, commercial at 18 and began spraying crops. In the meantime, at an early age, I began turning wrenches and scrubbing airplanes, pumping fuel, and anything else I could do to trade labor for flight time. I bicycled several hours each way after school each day to work at the airport, and all days on the weekends.

I grew up making models. Before I could afford the kits, I drew them, molded them, and used straws and paper and tape and string from school to make little hang gliders. Probably half a million paper airplanes. I went to every airshow I could find.

Now, with decades of flying behind, I still look up every time something flies over, and I still fly whenever I can.

Got my first car (1987 Ford Fiesta) it was ten years old.
Went for a mad drive and got totally lost. Ended up by what I thought was a field with lights in it. Parked up and went to look at why this field had these daft lights in it.
Queue the 747 about 100ft over my head. Thinking it was crashing and absolutely pooing myself, I was rather relieved to find out I was actually at Manchester Airport....

I grew up on Long Island, and I could sit on my front porch in Valley Stream NY and watch the airliners approaching runway 22L at what was Idlewild at the time(now KJFK) . It was the late 50s with DC6 and DC7s, Lockheed Constellations, Trans Canada Viscounts followed by Vickers Vanguards, Electras, and the the early 707s, DC8s and VC10s. I remember El Al and BOAC Bristol Brittanias.
But the love of aviation was kindled. I even became a pilot of small planes and seaplanes.

First flight at age 9, almost 10, April 1990. AA Super 80 CLE-DFW and a DC-10 DFW-HNL. I kind of liked the 10 but got really claustrophobic on the Mad Dog. But as a kid, I always had a tendency to learn all about things I was afraid of. So I started getting books about planes and was a total enthusiast by the end of the summer.

My father was a mechanic at Flightcraft in PDX. I remember in the early 80s we'd hang out on weekends at the end of the runway with our radios tuned to ATC to listen to the traffic. There was an elephant ear cart there, too. This was back when people still dressed up to go on commercial flights. Good times.. ^_^

probably a combination of moving to a small town with little to do, about 11 yrs old, my American cousin visiting for a few wks with a Stiletto & A-5 Vigilante model to build, that and visiting Abbotsford for the first time that summer and the CF-101's rumbling demo

[quote="jonnyclam123"]For me it was visiting a DL 757-200 cockpit at DAB[/quote

Living in the Final Approach for Runway 27 at the time for the South Bend Indiana Airport.

Sitting in my front yard in the early 90s watching L-1011 after L-1011 on approach to MCO.

My father was/ is a private pilot. We would fly up and down the east coast, and it would take hours. I was often airsick.

We would land at smaller fields (like Richmond, VA or Wilmington, NC). I would look out and gaze at the HUGE United 727-100’s, Eastern DC-9’s, and Piedmont 737’s, longing to be on them.

That’s what go me into commercial aviation!

Pretty much from watching videos about aviation news and technology on YouTube. I also like to watch planes land and take off whenever I am at an airport.

When I was 7, my Dad got his private pilot's license (when you could do it w/o selling your first born). He started with a Cessna 182, and then got a Commanche 180, then a Commanche 250. He used to teach me a new lesson every time we flew. I never pursued my private pilot's license, but I have always wanted to. Maybe even commercial.

My first flight was in August 2008 from Amsterdam to Nice with Transavia, since then I love travelling and aviation, but didn't quite yet starting to collect aviation-related stuff, In 2009 on my flight from Amsterdam to Hurghada I visited the cockpit of the ArkeFly Boeing 737-800, and I started loving it more and more, but most of the time it was Transavia, and I still love that Airline, between 2008 and 2011 I flew mainly with my grandmother and father. Flew from Teuge with a Cessna 172 twice, went to Aviodrome, where I bourgh my first model of the Transavia 757-200 in the old colors, but sadly my grandmother felt on it so it broke, but I had already the 737-800 of Transavia in the previous livery, at Eindhoven (which I now mostly fly from) I buyed a Boeing 777-300 of KLM 4 years ago when I flew to Denmark, at Copenhagen I bought the A340 of SAS, now I have the 737-800 of Transavia (current livery) TuiFly Germany (thought it was Tui Netherlands, but saw a German registration), KLM 747-400 and 777-300. So In 2008 I got into aviation, I am learning stuff about the Boeing 737-800, and the 737 Classic and MAX, but I hope one day I wil fly in a 737 Classic

Flight Simulator 98.

I am not sure what the appropriate forum is for this thread. First I thought “Aviation Hobby” But the description of that forum is that it’s for photos, simulators, etc. I would like for people to describe what it is that draws/drew you to aviation, both as a pilot or non-pilot enthusiast. Was it the awesomeness of the aircraft as a machine? Is it the aerodynamics? The physics behind flight?

For me it’s all of that, but also I’m intrigued by how much one has to learn and actually understand to operate an aircraft and how a pilot has to deal with being able to think through their training, actually be able to apply the complex information they’ve learned while dealing with emotional natural reactions related to problems that occur when flying that could realistically threaten their own lives.

Anyone else care to share?

I've been flying since I was an infant, going to see family in Scotland from the US. I guess that is what started it. Aviation has always fascinated me. On my last overseas visit to Ireland, while in the Admirals Club lounge at ORD, my dad was asking me about various airlines and what not, and answering those questions. From various trips overseas to see family and domestic trips, I guess that I have flown a quarter million miles or so.