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#11
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Air minded
My uncle got his airplane cert and bought a piper cherokee when i was
in elementary school. i flew with him a few times including some short XC trips to see my mom. i had a fairly typical set of airplane toys when i was a kid but didn't really "always dream of being a pilot". In high school i worked at my dad's pizza restaurant and a few CFI's started working there after they got a break from flying thanks to 9-11. Then i decided i wanted to be an airline pilot so i went through all the power training through Multi Engine Instructor. By the time I was done with that I realized that I didn't want to be an airline pilot but being a corporate pilot couldn't be that bad. My parents had other ideas and made me go to college so i had a "real job" backup. So I went to Aerospace Engineering school and basically by chance learned to fly gliders. I worked a lot as a CFI and Charter pilot while sometimes going to class. Now I work as an engineer but really just want to fly gliders all the time. |
#12
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Air minded
On Nov 29, 9:25*pm, Alex Potter wrote:
When did people become "air minded", and why? -- Alex Dad was ex-US Navy Air Corps (ca. 1944-46), and he had me fiddling around with various aircraft toys from as early as I can remember. One of the first plastic models was of an F4-U Corsair, dad's favorite and still one of the sexiest fighters ever built. Fast forward to a vacation in Franconia, New Hampshire, around 1973. A hang-gliding event was going on atop the local ski area at the same time as the local glider operation was towing. I spent hours lying in the grass taking it all in. Combine that with trips to visit the cousins back in the Fatherland, where they all flew both model and "real" gliders, and I was completely hooked on aviation. Fast forward again to 1984, when I headed off to college to become an aeronautical engineer. Well, turns out that required great math skills and 40 hours of problem sets each week - who knew! So, while I waffled between majors, I ran across a gliding club right on campus. Cha-ching! For the next four years, I biked out to the airport when I couldn't bum a ride and spent most of the money I earned waiting tables (who needs to buy textbooks when you have roommates) on tows. 25 years, a commercial and CFI-G rating, and about 2,000 hours later, I still find gliding as enthralling as ever. P3 Which, by the way comes from my Dad - Henry Mann III - who loaned me $5K to buy 1/3 of a Grob back in 1988. Pappa III. |
#13
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Air minded
On Nov 29, 9:25*pm, Alex Potter wrote:
When did people become "air minded", and why? -- Alex As far back as I can remember I would watch the gliders flying overhead our back yard (airport was about a mile away over a hill). Big brother went off to air force flight school when I was 5 (he washed out for a vision defect and wound up as a tower controller) but he did take me out to the airport to watch pattern ops, setting the hook a little deeper. Built numerous plastic models as a kid, and one "real" glider in which I catapulted my friend down the backyard hill in 3rd grade. Despite his admonitions to "stick to go-carts" I continued dreaming of flying until I had my first real job after finishing grad school. Office mate was a real pilot who flew tow and glider rides at the local airport and finally invited me down to meet the operation. Soloed in 1986 (day after GL at same place) but got married later that year, so finally got private glider licence at Harris Hill (Elmira) in 1992 (signed off for checkride by GL!). Crewed one day for P3 not long after that and vowed I'd fly contests someday. Finally made it a few years ago thanks to great club aircraft, and now actually own my own plane. -- Matt |
#14
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Air minded
I was already actively into model planes when the 1954 World Gliding
Championships were held not too far from my home in Derbyshire. One day, a competitor made a low save (~ 500 feet AGL) not far from our house and I last saw the ship climbing in a thermal and heading downwind. I was very impressed and took gliding lessons as soon as I was old enough and had the money. Mike |
#15
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Air minded
On Tue, 30 Nov 2010 02:25:16 +0000 (UTC), Alex Potter
wrote: When did people become "air minded", and why? You know what? I don't remember. Sure I remember that flying toys were among my favorites. Aviation movies and TV series like "les chevalier du ciel" with Mirage pilots had me waiting anxiously for the broadcast to start. Nevertheless, bikes and, later, motorbikes, were my real addiction. I have no idea when I knew about gliders, probably in my late 20's. No models, no building, no kites. I started gliding after some friends introduced me to boat sailing. I was surprised to feel the emotion of speed at a few knots, while the sail was producing lift depending on its angle to the airflow. I jumped off the boat and straight into a K-21 in the local club. Only to find out how... boring it was. You know, a glide in calm air. I decided I wanted to learn to fly anyway, so took the course. Gliding hooked me later, through imitation with the club's best pilots (all seemed to me to be "the best pilots") who soared for hours to the mountains and flew competitively. It's been almost 20 years now, well over 2000 hours, and a national record +some decent competition results and a few XC safaris. I now plan to get an Instructor rating. aldo cernezzi |
#16
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I grew up on a small farm with a small airport/grass strip about a mile away. For a kid riding a tractor with a plow or a disc, those airplanes taking off and landing not far away were fascinating. They were the typical single engine types one would find at such a field in the 50's and 60's.
I started building models and day dreaming about what it would be like to fly for real. I would walk down the side of the highway with a burlap bag picking up pop bottles which would get you 2 cents each, but I was really just interested in getting a close up view of those planes. I managed to wangle a ride in an old Piper Pacer, if my folks had found out I would have had caught hell. I joined the Air Force after high school and managed to find myself on the Airborne Battlefield Command and Control Center during the Vietnam War. I wasn't piloting but I was a crewman and that was going to have to do for a while. I could tell you what I did but I would have to kill you afterwards. Once I was discharged I enrolled in college but the flying bug just never went away. I found myself with a part time job at a small local airport and worked for flying lessons. In less than year I had a commercial, single engine land license. Some 1200 hours and 38 years later I found myself at Seminole Lake Gliderport doing an add on. I obtained a Commercial Glider rating and have been flying as regularly as I can for the last year. Gliding/soaring is without a doubt the best form of flying I have ever experienced. Air minded beats Air headed any day. Walt |
#17
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Air minded
- b. '49;
- nuts about flight for as long as I can remember; (in fresh spring grass) used to race DC-3's on hands and knees before/in grade school (knew what they were); - remember my first plastic model (pale green P-80 given each of dad's helpers collating previously-treed bits into plastic bags for his volunteer fire department fund raiser one year; hated the work but treasured the plane!); - could identify all common round-engine recip airliners and 1st-generation turboprops by sound (and can still distinguish Merlins from Allisons); - 'discovered' (w. older brother's help) balsa wood in grade school & learned the basics of W&B from years of hand-launched gliders; - messed about w. plastic models (still have a few from back then!) & later control line stuff - thought the hand-launched gliders were the most fun of all though; - eyesight ruled out military/airlines; to avoid having to do real work/continue to live off parents' dole, was 'forced' to take aerospace engineering (instead of the preferred aeronautical) due to the big NASA/moon push in the late '60's; - blundered into soaring through my 1st post-school job/officemate (Wil Schuemann), hit the glider side of the field first (fall '72/license summer '73) & never did conjur up sufficient motivation to obtain my power license despite several years' co-ownership of a C-150/passed written/signoff to take the practical/trip to Oshkosh in it ('79); Something about flight in general just 'was always' in my brain, & the fascination has never left. Soaring offered/offers a tremendous palette of experience for those with the disease, & though all flight is good, soaring can't be beat, IMHO! |
#18
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Air minded
I´m 44 and my father got me started with model planes when I was 7 (I
still have my first control line plane). I flew control line stunt and then R/C and still fly models when I can. When I was 8 or 9 I took my first glider ride and it was fun but what really set the hook was a flight in an IS 28 with a friend who was a serious competition pilot when I was 15.. We were up for an hour and we climbed and did some wingovers and he let me fly.. That did it.. I couldn´t afford to start lessons at that time so I would go to the club and help out and I crewed for this friend in four Nationals. When I was 20 I was in school and had a lousy job but it was just enough and I was able to get my glider licence and start flying. I was only able to fly a couple of years before the ups and down of the economy in my country made it almost impossible to keep flying and for several years I only flew sporadically. In 1999 I finally got things lined up and started flying again in earnest and fortunately have been at it ever since. If there are thermals all I want to do is go XC but I also instruct and fly the towplanes. I always had a keen interest in experimental planes and I´m involved in the construction of an aerobatic plane with a 400 HP Corvette engine. I sometimes wonder what ´´normal´´ people do.. I can´t think of anything except planes and flying.. Regards, Juan Carlos |
#19
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Air minded
I'm 47. Got a joy ride in a chopper when I was 4 or 5, fascinated by
birds and aircraft from childhood. I built c/l models, small ff gliders and designed my own 8' span r/c glider when I was 14. I joined the Air Cadets at 11, first had a flight in a 2-22; got a scholarship at age 16 for GPL and 17 for PPL. Joined the Canadian Air Force at 18 to be a pilot, but that didn't work out and went through university too poor to fly. Graduated and had health issues that kept me from flying, so I bought a sailboat. I got my health sorted out 6 years ago and my wife took me for an intro ride at a local club. I joined that day and got my rating back, built my hours, put a trailer at the field, became an instructor, bought a Kestrel 19 and I'm doing xc whenever I can. My wife decided to become a pilot and got her GPL this summer Now, to win the lottery and buy an Arcus M or E |
#20
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Air minded
I was bought up at various airfields in the Uk and far east as my father
was a navigator in the RAF.. I had no interest in flying at the time. Fast forward to my mid 20s. I was a rally navigator, sitting next to nutters driving far too fast down farm tracks. One day my driver anounced that he was giving up to join a gliding club. i went along with him to see this wierd sport. (no engine, how can that be exciting). After a 45 min trial flight that included soaring and simple aerobatics I was totaly hooked and have been for the past 35 years. I fly very little these days for financial reasons but still manage to scrounge the occasional 2 seat flight. (4 hrs cross country in a Nimbus3dt with a british team member. Thanks Kim) Nigel |
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