What's your "I've always wanted to fly" story?

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Originally Posted by Hal Bryan

As we've been talking about the launch of the new Eagle Flights program, a lot of us with differing aviation backgrounds have found ourselves swapping stories about how we'd "always wanted to fly" and what it took to get us to that first flight.

For me, I took my first airplane ride when I was 6 months old, and started holding the wheel of the family "Bamboo Bomber" when I was 4. My dad was a pilot for United from DC-3s to 747s, and I lived on a private airstrip from age 8 - 18. I've always been one of the stupidly lucky ones - for all practical purposes, there never was a time in my life when I'd wanted to fly, but hadn't yet.

But what about you? How many of you grew up with flight? And how many more of you had to find your own way - and how did you get there?

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I have very few memories of my father, but most of those few memories involved flying with him when I was a toddler. Can't say that I grew up with flying though. My parents divorced when I extremely young (around 3) and I didn't see much of my father after that. For sure, I never flew in a small airplane again until I was 16. That's when I had my first flight lesson. I've never asked my mother, but I suspect that the first couple of flight lessons, and ground school, was pity since I had cheated death a few months earlier when I was it by a car while riding my bike. That little accident resulting in me spending two weeks in the hospital, a full quarter out of school, and life long limp that is most noticeable when I'm extremely tired. After the first two lessons, my flight training was financed by Dunkin' Donuts. Like most people, when I had the money, I flew. When I didn't, I worked.

Young Eagles wasn't even an glimmer of an idea at the time, but the Aviation Explorers was. It was through this organization that I got my initial flight training. I eventually got my private ticket many years later, but I think I can safely say that if it wasn't for the Explorers, I wouldn't be where I am today in aviation.

There's a lot more to my aviation story, but in a nutshell, that's how I got there.

My "bug" got started when my business partner used his Cessna 170A to fly me to California to buy 1500 colonies of bees. We were flying the low freq range back then. This "bug" was fertilized when two cars come over the hill directly at me in 1964 and I took the ditch in my VW bug. Got out to calm down, when a plane flew over low. He did not have traffic up there, so immediately purchased a 51 Piper Tri Pacer ($3000) and started taking lessons so I could fly it for business. A half dozen airplanes later and many thousands of hours over the next 35 years flying strictly for business. Then I sold the business, rediscovered Oshkosh, now it is flying for fun and home building. A Sonex is flying and I am in the middle of building a Sport Copter gyro plane. Every airplane that I ever wanted to fly, I did, either buying it and selling a few months later, or because it was furnished by the FBO for me to use. This included a Comanche 400 and a Helio Courier. Such things are not possible for the average guy any more. Shame

Like a lot of folks, it started with a model airplane - a Nieuport 17 that put as many permanent fingerprints in my imagination as I had had put on to it with glue. The smell of heavy leather, castor oil and gasoline were easy to summon as I held it up to the clouds in the backyard, the empty cockpit easily filled in the mind's eye.

I was always looking up at the sound of aircraft. For a few years we lived in Great Falls, Montana, and I became very sharp at finding the F-104 that was well in front of its roar

I've always kept my deepest desires as secret as I can manage; the first anyone knew I was interested in flight was the fateful day in fourth grade when a vision test revealed I needed glasses. I wept.

Still, I dove into theory of flight and the pioneer era. They didn't care about eyeglasses in those days; it was the two orbs attached to a man roughly three feet lower than the eyes that mattered more.

I would take my adventure in other ways by carrying a rifle and a radio, where they not only sponsored a young man's fancy for danger and travel, they rewarded it with special little wings and bits of cloth to wear and thought one better for it.

My comrades in arms quickly knew never to allow me a headset to speak with the crew of a helicopter. "You guys must be new or something; I thought we were going to fly low and fast" never failed to give the results I intended, heedless of what anyone else might have had for breakfast.

The personal computer grew from piles of parts to something useable, and with it flight simulations. If I couldn't fly an actual aircraft I could fly a virtual one! And then one could connect two of them via null modem cable and fly against a friend. And then one could connect via telephone through the computer and fly against many people.

MS Flight Simulator left me cold; too sterile and more akin to driving a bus with nagging rules to follow. Jets weren't fun, either - they're not so much aircraft as weapons platforms with systems to manage. I drew the line at WWII and preferred WWI with the introduction of the Red Baron series (and now Rise of Flight).

Loads of real pilots would tell me that I should get some training in real aircraft; I doubted that much translated over (I was wrong).

Finally I retired from the Army and took a year off to refurbish our house, repairing the damages that had proved that the surest way to negate the notion that all people are inherently good is to rent one's house out. Six months after that an amazing thing happened.

I had nothing to say.

Oh crap! It's unforgiveable to be boring, and a sure way of losing marital bliss, since I had sold my bride a bill of goods that included the words frustrating, infuriating, inscruitable, but never uninteresting. Hunting around the web I found the KC Dawn Patrol website and found that one can make their own aircraft for the price of a good used car.

And, in true karma wheel fashion, they're WWI replicas.

The wife was skeptical and relieved that I had found a new path of personal growth at forty-five that didn't involve a sports car and hair implants, but supported me.

So I became a pilot and am building a Nieuport 11.

Hi All,

I can't remember a time when I didn't want to fly. Both of my parents had served in the Royal Australian Air Force and my father had flown fighters during the Korean War before following a career in civil aviation.

I can remember at a very early age clambering over all manner of aeroplanes and being my Dad's shadow. I was fascinated with every aspect of flight and could not imagine doing anything else at any stage of my life. For me, in many ways, it's about special moments. The earth falling away from the wheels on a still morning. The first rays of light glowing on the horizon after a long night aloft. The unforgettable point on that 'first solo' when it dawns on you; I'm up here alone. And now seeing the joy of flight on my children's faces.

Over the years aviation has taken me literally all around the world in aircraft ranging from Boeings to Biplanes and I've enjoyed every minute of it. Here's a story I wrote some time back on this very topic. http://www.owenzupp.com/_blog/Owen_Z...t/Golden_Days/ I thought I'd share it with you.

Cheers,

Owen

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