Remembering why I wanted to fly
12-12-2011 | 02:38 PM
#12
Line Holder
Joined: May 2011
Posts: 1,016
Likes: 27
From: 737 CA
V1 is where it's at. At least you know you're going flying, and flying has got to be the coolest job in the world.
12-12-2011 | 04:11 PM
#13
Line Holder
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 122
Likes: 0
From: Over 60 and Still Living the Dream
Don't know who said this, but...
"Never stop being a kid. Never stop feeling and seeing and being excited with great things like air and engines and sounds of sunlight within you. Wear your little mask if you must to protect you from the world but if you let that kid disappear you are grown up and you are dead." /
"Never stop being a kid. Never stop feeling and seeing and being excited with great things like air and engines and sounds of sunlight within you. Wear your little mask if you must to protect you from the world but if you let that kid disappear you are grown up and you are dead." /
Here are a couple of more:
Flying makes me feel like a sex maniac in a wh**e house with a stack of $20 bills.
— Pancho Barnes
I've never known an industry that can get into people's blood the way aviation does.
— Robert Six, founder of Continental Airlines.
12-12-2011 | 05:12 PM
#14
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 266
Likes: 0
From: FO
After 13 years of hand flying military airplanes with no (or crappy) autopilots and steam gauges (or digital instruments that look just like them) I'm flying my first glass cockpit airplane. Years of conversations with airline buddies warning me of automation complacency and atrophy of basic flying skills now make sense. And now more than ever I have come to appreciate my GA flying. Never before has it been so obvious to me that the soul of aviation lies in little airplanes with a round engine, no engine, tailwheel, skis, or floats.
If anyone out there has had the passion fade I strongly suggest getting back into GA flying. Get a tailwheel endorsement, seaplane rating, or glider rating. You'll be a happier pilot with sharper flying skills for doing so.
05-08-2012 | 08:03 PM
#16
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Mar 2010
Posts: 255
Likes: 0
Great thread. Hoping those with "more seniority" can share memories of their "golden years."
My dad is a retired (furloughed) Midwest captain. As a kid in the late '80s, early '90s, I non-revved all over the place, often skipping school to do it. A career as a UA 727 CA, based at ORD, flying LGA, DCA, BOS, was my dream job. I'm separating from AD AF and patiently waiting for the "hiring boom." With the passing of Denny Fitch, and the UA commercials on You Tube, I guess I'm getting a little nostalgic...
Please share stories about the best times of your careers.
Pancake
My dad is a retired (furloughed) Midwest captain. As a kid in the late '80s, early '90s, I non-revved all over the place, often skipping school to do it. A career as a UA 727 CA, based at ORD, flying LGA, DCA, BOS, was my dream job. I'm separating from AD AF and patiently waiting for the "hiring boom." With the passing of Denny Fitch, and the UA commercials on You Tube, I guess I'm getting a little nostalgic...
Please share stories about the best times of your careers.
Pancake
05-09-2012 | 12:19 AM
#17
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 220
Likes: 0
From: Journo by night, irrigator by day
Great stories guys, my life long interest in aircraft was triggered by this old girl, my first airliner ride as a teenager, in '83. It was my 13th and the pilots had me up the front for a looksie. I was a pretty frequent flyer as a kid, mostly F-50s, but this was a different creature altogether...
VH-RMW. Boeing 727-277. c/n 20550-1030.
VH-RMW. Boeing 727-277. c/n 20550-1030.
05-09-2012 | 03:30 PM
#20
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 378
Likes: 0
From: Skeptical
A few years back I was waiting in a terminal for a deadhead, beat down and tired and deep into a stretch of not having really smiled at work in a long time.
A kid, about five years old, comes up to me and tugs on my sleeve:
"Excuse me, are you a pilot?"
I was able to crack a half-smile and say "Yes, I am."
His eyes got wide and his volume doubled and he belted out, "Wow. That is SO COOL!"
It made my day, my week, my many years later now still remembering his face, because when a 5 year old tells you you're cool, there is no filter. That's it: you are cool.
Firemen, athletes, military, and pilots get to live out childhood fantasies like this.
Lawyers, doctors, politicians, businessmen never will.
Maybe you had to be there, but it made me think of myself when I was a kid, and why I do indeed love what I do.
A kid, about five years old, comes up to me and tugs on my sleeve:
"Excuse me, are you a pilot?"
I was able to crack a half-smile and say "Yes, I am."
His eyes got wide and his volume doubled and he belted out, "Wow. That is SO COOL!"
It made my day, my week, my many years later now still remembering his face, because when a 5 year old tells you you're cool, there is no filter. That's it: you are cool.
Firemen, athletes, military, and pilots get to live out childhood fantasies like this.
Lawyers, doctors, politicians, businessmen never will.
Maybe you had to be there, but it made me think of myself when I was a kid, and why I do indeed love what I do.
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