What were your defining moments in becoming an enthusiast?

As with many others, Airfix! Specifically a 1:72nd Gnat which I still have somewhere. Several Finningley airshows later and I was well and truly hooked.

Tom.

many thanks for that! brings back memories of being 14 again!

Welcome to the forum, Andycap.

1986, Redhill, from this thread.

Enjoy.

A good introduction first thread for me to post on! I grew up and indeed still live within 5 minutes of Redhill aerodrome and also under the gatwick flight path. My father was for many years the insurance manager for Bristow Helicopters, and infact that is where my Mum and Dad first met! and so I more or less grew up on the “drome” during the early 70’s, during which time the tiger club was stil based at Redhill, so although Dad was a helicopter man, I used to love watching Tiger moths, Stampes, Pitts specials etc etc!This was still the time when Redhill was having big air shows too, and I remember watching the Sally B on one of her first displays at Redhill, although the year eludes me! and i distincly remember hearing my first Merlin around this time and it made me cry! thirty years later they still make me cry!
over the years my interests have become more and more ww2 orientated and I just feel the need to say thankyou and support our brave “boys” in whatever way I can.

😮 TOP STUFF 😮 , I’m finding them all so interesting 😉 .

Do we have any thought’s,
From any of the ” Lady’s ” around the World :confused: , who may too suffer from this MALE disorder, of being tottally PLANEMAD or slighty TOUCHED :rolleyes: (alway’s up in the cloud’s on a sunny day) in the head.

Cya :p

My missus is totally hooked on Jaguars ! Last year we went camping in Norfolk, just happened to be under the take off route from Coltishall and they were training with Polish SU-22’s that week. On the first morning the fly overs were incredible, resulting in one happy Liz running back in a state of excitement from the showers and insisting that we went straight over to the airfield where she spent an hour right at the end of the runway getting deafened by the jet blast. Just about every activity that week involved being near jaguars, almost every trip out happened to pass the runway.
This year we decided to go to Cornwall, which is what we did in the end, but suddenly realising the imminent demise of Coltishall, we did desperately try to book cottages at the last minute in Norfolk without success, I don’t know how she will cope when they are finally disbanded.
As I’ve said before we get a lot of a/c over the house transiting from Duxford, there is usually pretty much of a fight to get through the door first.
The day we got back from Cornwall, having seen little aviation activity all week, we parked on our drive, walked up to the door and a spitfire and mustang flew over,”That,” she said,” is the best welcome home you could possibly have.”
Must be something to do with me !!!

Keep’em Comming!!

😮 TOP STUFF 😮 , I’m finding them all so interesting 😉 .

Do we have any thought’s,
From any of the ” Lady’s ” around the World :confused: , who may too suffer from this MALE disorder, of being tottally PLANEMAD or slighty TOUCHED :rolleyes: (alway’s up in the cloud’s on a sunny day) in the head.

Cya :p

Easy. From the day I was born there was a photograph in the hall in my parents house opposite my bedroom showing my dad climbing the stairs of a beautiful KLM L-749 when he was about to leave for New Guinea. When that’s what you see first every day you get out of bed you’re bound to get hooked. Second to this my fathers stories and photos about the Dutch Navy Catalina’s on the lake’s in New Guinea, still amongst my favorites.

Harm-Jan

For me, it was the movie “The Final Countdown”. Nothing more exciting than seeing modern Naval Aviation at it’s best!

Steve

As you might have guessed by now with my user name being what it is :dev2:

I grew up in Lincolnshire in the 70s and 80s, and apart from living in Immingham 😮 I had Binbrook, Cranwell, Donna Nook, Scampton, and Waddington, within 50 miles from home and Coningsby within an hours drive. What more could you ask for……

Although I cannot quite remember where and when i got hooked, being dragged around airshows and all the above and other bases might have been the root cause. Watching Hunters doing CAPs around Killingholme and Hunters and Lightnings chasing Phatoms MirageIII/Vs F-104s and Vulcans etc etc left a big impression. 😀

I can remember the 25th anniversary of the Lightning even though the 25 ship flypast was stuffed by the weather!, and lots of Vulcan scrambling demos to name a couple…..

Tim

Brought up on all things aviation – father and uncles ex-RAF, grandad an RFC ack-emma, me in cadets. But I hadn’t taken much notice of aviation for about 15 years until I happened to pass Newark air museum and pop in. That revived my interest: main impression was thinking of how life was much harder for the average person in “the old days” but all the technology was so much more soulful than it is now and most people were striving for a better tomorrow for everyone.

Well now!!

Ok, thought about it a while’s :rolleyes: .

About 5 years old climbing on an AT-6 Harvard, at a service station, near Edward’s Lake Reservior, near Preston Victoria.
MAY have been a Wirraway, not sure, since dissapeared, and I think restored, and or flying, Can someone here in Oz confirm this ! :confused:

Second, still maybe 5 or 6 :confused: , climbing up on the fence at home to watch 😮 , the long pointy nosed white plane, called the ” Concorde “.

Flying over my place, on her way to Land in Melbourne, DON’T think she was allowed to come back ever again, because of noise or something ? :confused:

Third, Being the FIRST in my group at Junior Air League, at about 15.

To go up in a German made Blanc( I Think) Glider, with a TOP pilot, Mr Valentine (saddly now Dec), And getting up to the highest alt above the old RAAF Laverton airbase, out of the whole group of about 10 or more flight’s that day 😎 ‘

Me and Mr Valentine managed to get too small but GOOD thermal’s, and hit about 3,500 ft, then he turned and asked if I was up for some fun and I said GO FOR IT FOR MR VALENTINE :dev2: .

He then did Glider aerobatic’s for me that were just RADICAL, and I can still remember looking sideway’s during his routeen, out of the cockpit going down in a stall turn I think, seemingly slipping wing first at them, 😮 Looking straight down at a heap of old RAAF Herc’s.

Then Mr Valentine took us back up to about 2,000ft again, with a little help from another very small looking white cloud, but with quiet a good thermal under it 😮 ,
And then let ME, have the stick for a while, and he tought me a few thing’s about silent glider flight and basic handling of the bird 😎 , nothing beat’s it for peacefulness, NO brute force to fly, no engine noise or vibration, just the air slipping past, whisling softly 😉 .

And I would do it again tomorrow if I could!!!! 😀 .

Forgot!!!! 😮 , Helping restore 2 ex N.Z.A.F AT-6’s, up at Essendon Drome at about 15/16,
THEN getting to sit in the back of one of them when doing
First engine and Taxi run’s 😎 , with oil pouring out of the engine all the time, and with the SMOKE coming into the cockpit as we sped along the tarmac, and ME thinking THIS bloody oldbitch trainer is about to EXPLODE!!! 😮 😮 😀

Spewing real bad, I missed the planned flight’s for all the helper’s at Mangalore Airshow at a latter date 🙁 ,

But some of me other mate the same age,

SURE DID!!! LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY BAST*RD’S :p

Ciao for now 🙂

Childhood trips to shows at Cosford and Coventry, the opening of the “new” Birmingham Airport in pouring rain, Airfix kits of Spitfires and Hurricanes, Matchbox 2-tone models of Fairey Seafoxes and Brewster Buffaloes… Hooked for life.

As a seven year old, on holiday with my parents at my grandparents holiday cottage in Cornwall. The old man who lived next door had been a crewman (not sure whether he was a pilot/nav/bomber/gunner or what exactly now 🙁 ) on Lancasters. He knew I had a bit of an interest, so he gave me a copy of Aviation, an illustrated history” by Christopher Chant and I guess that started me off.

I grew up in Palmdale California, moved there in 1955 at age 10, everyone was involved with avation in some way. My dad worked for North Americanb Avation. If it was flying it was flying around Palmdale. You could tell the new kid in school when there was a sonic boom they would jump and look around. People that had lived there a while just sat there. So I guess I just just always knew I would be involved with avation. One interesting thing I saw was the first flight of the SR-71 (two years later I was working on them in the US Air Force). I’m retired now but worked on and around airplanes for almost 40 years.

Living 5 miles or so from Brize Norton in the 50s, watching the seeming endless stream of B47s and B52s flying over Witney.

Seeing a flight of Lincolns at an open day at Lindholme c.1956.

And of course – ah Shuttleworth – from the 60s.

Chris

Difficult, because it’s always been there. No family connections with aviation or the RAF, just an abiding interest that has grown into something else now.

Big influences were having a neighbour who was a fitter with 234 Squadron at the time of the Battle of Britain. The Air Training Corps and for me now, it’s largely about the Veterans, Rememberance and all that goes with it.

All I know is that as I get older, the more I get to know, the more I need to learn.

Regards,

kev35

I was about 6 or 7 when my Gran gave me my Uncles book ‘Famous Fighters of the Second World War’.The pictures captivated me, and any drawings I did were invariably aircraft. I went on thinking the war was fought in black and white until seeing the Battle of Britain on the big screen.No film has ever had such an impact on me.

Must have been about 1977-ish. My mates dad took four of us to RAF Leuchars At Home Day. He flew as a rear gunner in Lancs during WWII and being kids we always wanted to listen to his war stories. Not sure how much was true and hiow much was ‘made up’ for us kids.

I can vaguely remember the Lightinings coming in over the runway. By the time the commemtator said ‘If you look to your right……….’ they had been and gone.

The Vulcan roaring down the runway pulling up and doing a steep right hand bank. Usually during these airshows the Russians would send a Bear over the North Sea and we would see the QRA Phantoms scramble after it. It happened every year. Once they had taken off the show would resume.

You don’t get airshows like that anymore.

Alex

War Picture Library, Battle Picture Library, Commando Comics and Air Ace Picture Library ….

Airfix – in a word!!!