Your aviation connection?

Started with Airfix models in the late 50’s, PPL when I was 18, models, photography, got involved with Myles Robertson rebuilding a Moth Minor and Fox Moth fuselages, was with AHSNZ for a year or 2.
Now – haven’t flown in years (too busy riding motorbikes, which have always been a co-love), but have an avid interest in aviation history and gossip!

12 years as an airframe technician… oh and engines now too……

ATC until 17 years old.
RAF Flight Line Mech then Engine Man ‘Sooty’ for 23 years.

RAF Cranwell – JP’s (Poachers Groundcrew 75-76) 😎
RAF Honington – 208 Sqn Buccaneers :dev2:
RAF Laarbruch – 16 Sqn Buccaneers :dev2:
RAF Lyneham – Allison T56 repair bay (PRF) & 1312 Flght ‘Herk Det – Port Stanley’ 🙂
RAF HQSTC 😡
RAF Lyneham – Again same place! 😡
RAF Bruggen – Tornado Engine Bay 🙁
Civvy Street. :confused:

Bit of an aircraft fan – Can be seen sniffing fumes through the fence at Edinburgh Airport – oh how I miss the smell of burnt Avtur (or JetA1, Avtag, JP4) :diablo:

I’ve always been around airplane…
My Father was a B-17 pilot in the 15th AF and stayed in the USAF as a career as both a pilot and maintenance oficer berfore retiring in the late 60s.
Two uncles were also in WWII: One llew gliders into Normandy on D-Day, the other was a B-24 navigator and spent time in a Luft Stalag.

I worked for a small regional airline before joining the USAF where I spent 20 years as a public affairs officer.
My job put me in daily contact with aircraft and pilots…I worked with B-52, KC-135, F-106, UH-1N, A-10, C-130 and B-1s units and had flights in many of them..plus a few other USAF aircraft.
All told I’ve flown in about 50 types and historic types anging from Tiger Moths and Dakotas to a B-17.

I’m a GA pilot with fixed wing and helicopter time.
The helicopter was a Bell 47s…so I’d consider that a historic type.
I’m proud of my autographed book colection…Wright, Lindbergh, Doolittle, aces (including a rare Don gentile signed book) and astronauts.

As a journalist I’ve contributed to several publications (including FlyPast) and after my retirement from the USAF, I’ve covered military and civil aviation for a television station.

I’ve helped a friend restore the only airworthy Boeing Model 40…the world’s oldest airworthy Boeing aircraft.

I’m not sure what to do next…hopefully I’ll have free time when I really retire..maybe purchase a historic type.

Not a bad background (IMHO)…but there is always something more to learn, places to visit.

Young aeroplane nut. My dad is the one who got me into avation, he’s a design engineer (started off as an apperntice at Hawkers now CEng) Some of my earliest memories are of hanging around while we were rebuilding our Fuji-160. I want to emulate (posh word for copy) dad and get into aeronautical engineering. (some way to go though)

My maternal grandfather was a Corporal in the groundcrew of 149 Squadron through the whole war, on Wellingtons, Stirlings and Lancasters. Grew up hearing all about them, did the making models thing, dabbled in cockpits etc.

Your aviation connection

:rolleyes:Daughter of FAA pilot and instructor. Wife of ex flyer, ex RAF. Father in law was WOP. Website for www.rafdavidstowmoor.org . Helper at Cornwall at War Museum. Collector of sweetheart brooches – not just the flying ones!
At one time I used to have time to go to work – MOD!!

No family connections to aviation, but I’d like to get into aviation archaeology.

No family connections to aviation, however it all went downhill when I discovered Airfix:D

ATC
Modelmaker
Cpl Airframe Technician RAF
Joint keeper of aircraft for a time at Fenland Aircraft Museum
Stirling Project
and restoring Chipmunk WP927

I keep telling the wife and kids that “I’m not an anorak”:p

Great Grandfather was an airframe rigger in RFC and then RAF
Grandfather was a merlin engine fitter in WW2 on Mosquitos, Lancs, Defiants, Beaufighters, etc.
Father is a great engineer and designer.
I inherited the Collins engineering gene, and have been messing around with planes (and models occasionally) since my early teens.

Former Volunteer at local museum (aim to get back into that)
Enthusiast
Model Maker
Trying to work my way through my Private pilots license
Aspiring aircraft owner (would love a Hunter)
Father in Law was in the RAF

dragged to airshows by dad (Finningly / Leuchars alturnate years),

ATC,

RAF Airframe / Propulsion Tech, (JT)

Volunteer at local (and not so local museums – NEAM, Elvington, Cosford, Elvington again, NEAM again – project manager)

EASA pt 66 Licence course,

Airfame fitter (civvy contractor all over the place, 747, A300, A310, 737-400, A319-20, BAe146, Avro Lancaster),

Current instructor of aviation engineering at a college

and finally starting a new museum project.

Now I’m 30, its all downhill…….

phew!:D

Sneaked into the ATC when i was 12 , then joined the RAF at 16. Did a few years tinkering with Hawks and Tornados, left and tinkered with airliners, AWACS and C130’s, and am currently tinkering with WAH-64’s.
I ‘m also helping a collegue build an RV-8 in his garage.

I enjoy the satisfaction of Rigging stuff, but I’m a sheety by choice, nothing beats a bit of structural stuff!

Interested in planes as long as I can remember (first 5 years lived a few miles from Stead AFB, now the site of the Reno Air Races… then it was still an active USAF base), and knew what a “sonic boom” was, and how it was formed, before I could read.

Avid modeler (warships as well as aircraft) from 8 or so.

6/81-6/89 in USMC, fixing avionics on A-6E Intruders & F/A-18A Hornets (and consorting with KC-130R, A-4M, F-4S, & A-7E types… as well as a year aboard a USN carrier with F-14s, E-2s, S-3s, SH-3s, & a lone EA-3 Skywarrior).

Grandfather worked for Avro from 1913 until his death two months after I was born. Amongst other things he altered the Avro Manchester wing jig drawings to Avro Lancaster on his kitchin table after work! He met amongst others, Kingsford-Smith, Hinkler, Cobham, the Mollinsons (Amy and Jim) and would have been on first name terms with Roy Dobson and Roy Chadwick – and I never got to talk to him 🙁
Mother worked during WW2 at Avro Newton Heath (easy when your dad’s the boss).

Family moved to Heald Green in 1960 which put us 1.5 miles from the end of the runway at Ringway (but unlike my brother I never became a spotter).

ATC cadet at 284 Sqn Soloed on Sedbergh XN185 24/09/72.
Joined VGS in 1979 and took my first pax up in VX275 23/08/80 and I’m still with them some 2500 hours P1 later.

In the mean time I’ve been a member of the Aeroplane Collection. SVAS, and SOFMAF.

In 1987 I had a career move in the Civil Service and started work at A&AEE Boscombe Down testing aerial delivery systems (throwing large silly objects out of Hercules) ut I’m now on aircraft systems playing with Nimrods, TriStars, Sentry, Hercules and UAVs!

I’ve been a plastic scale modeller from age 7 making anything and everything but now specialise in British Airborne Forces if only because I have access to the information.

Live in the same village as Rocketeer.

When I was really young I was taken to Strathallen and remember only that we walked through an aircraft. In at the back and out through the front. They also had dummies in uniform to make the cockpit look full. My mother thought they were real and we going to take off. That caused her to panic a bit. Total panic merchant my mum.

I have East Fortune down the road from me so have seen it change dramatically over the years and also Drem which I have visited many times to see the old buildings. Macmerry was very close by when I was growing up so we used to take walks along the old peritrack when you could still see it and when the new A1 bypass wasnt there.

A few years ago now I bought Wing Leader by Johnnie Johnston for 20p out a steptoe type yard and loved it. It really fired my passion for aviation. Obviously I was out going to airfields and airshows for years but it was that book that changed my outlook on aviation. Well that and being invited along to a Halifax wreck site memorial where I met my mate and got deeper into the whole research side of things.

I also fly model aircraft and build airfix typed kits (badly) and airshow photography (1 in every couple of dozen photos is a good one.

Now I just love all thing aviation especially the pioneers of flight and warbirds.

Very interesting collection of backgrounds…

Not really doing much for our street credibility 😀

The words “obsessed” and “obsession” seem used alot :p

Add the varoius degrees of “spotter” and we have a fully fledged anorak convention 😉

Nevertheless its a good thread.

I like men in uniform 😉
I’m just kidding 😀 lol

When I was little my dad used to take me to air shows before he died and I just have a love for all things aviation. Plus I was obsessed with all old airfields as a child, and at school I remember doing a summer History homework assignment on the airfields of Lincolnshire, got an A in it as well 😀

I know nothing about engineering and I wouldn’t know how to fly a plane, I just love being able to sit at Coningsby every once in a while and photograph what ever shows up 🙂
Ok fine I’m a spotter :p:D lol But that’s what happeneds when you have Waddington on one side of you house and scampton on the other lol.
Before they built all the houses behind us, we had a lovely view of both flight paths 😀

Some interesting people here and experienced

keep ’em comming

668
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Been into planes from a young age – about 4 or 5 – though not sure how exactly I got into old aircraft.

Can just remember my grandparents taking me to the Strathallan Collection about that age – did have photos of their Lancaster and Magister somewhere…