How did your passion start?

[cathay belgium]

Hi,

Want to know how started your passion for aviation ?

Mine : reading the comic Buck Danny In Korea on holiday when I was about 10??
After this I didn't want to be astronaut but a fighterpilot, a bit later a SR71 pilot, than a F14 pilot (TopGun?),
then F16, then B747,then B737 and now still a bit hope for a Cessna ever ???

Still love Buck Danny, no pilot (for now) but 150 flights and counting...

Buck sets me still thinking of flying a DC3(done) and the Catalina (next year?) and some other ones that are
a bit more difficult to get on the list ( altough I had my first view on a real SR71 already )


And yours ?

CX-B

[Comet]

Tricky question

My Grandad had been in the RAF 1939-1945 and so I was brought up in an aviation enthusiast family - we used to go to the Finningley Air Show every year, which was military-orientated, but, unlike other members of my family I am an airliner enthusiast!

I became seriously interested in airliners after a holiday in Iceland when I was 13, our hotel was near a domestic airport in Reykjavik where we used to watch the Fokker 27s taking off and landing. I started to collect postcards featuring airliners and so I learned how to recognise any airliner, and it really started from that rather than our annual trips to the air show.

One of my most memorable inflight moments was a trip onto the flightdeck of a Boeing 747-400 flying from LHR-LAX, that was superb and such a pity I can never repeat the experience.

[regi]

What a coincidence. This same question popped up in my mind yesterday for the first time ! My little daughter asked me to make a drawing of a clown, and I told her I am not so good in drawings. In fact, I said, I can only draw airplanes Really guys !
I remember in 4th grade that I made a nice looking drawing of a super high tech fighter plane. I just got a 6 because the teacher didn't like military stuff and it wasn't really the subject. So my daughter who can make wonderful , creative drawings, tried to make an airplane. Guess what, she couldn't. She had a problem to visualize the wings, tail and so on. Yes, sure daddy helped her.
And she told me it looked OK. And when I asked her to put peoples behind the windows she got in the system.
4 drawings later, she is now an aviation enthusiast! I showed her the website of airliners, with the picture side. So she can look at all sorts of airplanes in all kind of colours, and from different angles.

I thought that my passion just started when I started flying at around 20. But I discovered that I have always been intrigued by airplanes. I made model planes ( easy for family gifts ) hanging from my bed room sealing. I had some kwartet card games, and the ones with airplanes, I knew every detail of at age 8. ( the C5, Concorde and Blackbird made a big impression on me by their unbeatable performances. But when I drew a Breguet I felt lost )
And when we made a school trip to Ostend airport I was delighted ! In those days you could visit the outside terrace and the teacher had to pull me of the roof
It all went in overdrive by travelling around the world. My military days were also an extra drive.
Now with internet it is a daily routine. Correction: addiction.
And with my work in the metallic part manufacturing, the circle is 3/4 full. The last quarter will never be filled: flying by myself because of some health issues prohibiting me of joining Ostend/North Sea flying school.
( I can not stand unpressurised flying because of a sort of balance and heart disorder )
Money is no excuse. Despite it is costly, if you want to do it, you find a way to fulfill your dream. I do not consider sport pilots as snobs - as many peoples do. I consider them as a special breed of people, with the drive to get their qualifications, for who I have great respect.
As a real born Brugian, I know of course the stories of Roland Hurtekant, who's son was with me in school, and who lived around the corner. Yep, the guy who got lost somewhere on an Algerian airbase.

[jan_olieslagers]

Real passions start in childhood indeed. As a boy, I lived under the southern downwind of EBAW circuit, and I grew up with the habit of looking up at whatever plane flew along. If it was noteworthy - and that didn't take much, those days! - I'd be on my bicycle for a quick five minute's run to the "mushroom"* where views were not yet obstructed by any building.

Then came growing up, and unexpected success in a quite different area - music! - and then marriage and a family and having to earn money and all that.

Today I am a grandparent, and no more married, and work and money come and go. I was rather surprised to find I could afford to learn and fly, though humbly, and am still surprised I could afford to actually acquire my own plane. Even if it was on a miracle of good luck, and even if the plane is humble enough too. Now if they will finally register it in Brussels, I will be flying it one day really soon now! I could never have dreamed of that, as a child.

*did you know it was built as a prototype for the round concrete hangars at EBGB?

[luchtzak]

In 1995 my girlfriend's aunt and uncle worked for Sabena as senior purser and captain, I could get a weekend job at Sabena cleaning in 1995 and 1996, in 1996 I did my interview for the Sabena school to work as a flight attendant. After 3 months working for Sabena they offered us a job at DAT. In july 1997 I got a promotion to purser. In the winter of 2001 I broke my elbow and thus had extra time to discover HTML and the WWW hence this website

[CS-TMX]

My father worked for TAP as an Aircraft Maintenance Technician. So I grew up with that airline and aircraft were always part of my life as you can see in this very old drawing of mine.



In 2000, when I was 17, I opened a website about my favorite aircraft (TriStar500.net) and started my Aerospace Engineering degree. In 2007 I became a Flight Attendant with Luzair, flying the good old L-1011 (well, it was the only way I found to fly one again after more than 14 years ). Now I've been working for TAP in the same job for more than 3 years and I still preserve some of my childhood fascination about aviation. Though the job is not anymore what it used to be, I'm still happy to work with aircraft, people and with the airline where I grew up. In fact, most of the days I go to work with the thought "I want to work today"!

[Comet]

I like your drawing!

I am a fan of the TriStar too, but only as a spotter, I was never lucky enough to fly in one.

[cathay belgium]

Hi,

Great story, the Tristars are definately good memories, ans also I never had the opportunity to fly one !

Thx,

Cx-B

[YYZ727]

I can pinpoint the start of my passion for planes and flying to one precise moment.
I must have been around 5 or 6 years old when my mom and dad took me to the airport at Ostend, which at that time had an open air terrace. there was only one airplane present near the terminal, but what a beauty she was. It was a BAF (British Air Ferries) Bristol Superfreighter, and i was mesmerized. How in heavens' name could cars be loaded on a plane ? When, after the loading of the cars, the plane started its engines, taxied away and thundered along the runway, the deal got finalized.... Today, thirthysomething years later (even getting close to fortysomething) i can still hear the heavenly noise of those piston engines...
I believe that was the moment it all started for me....

By the way CX-B, Buck Danny is also one of my favorite series... i prefer the albums 10 through 19, with 'de tijger van Malakka' & 'Aanval op Malakka' as my favourites... After that the series went a bit downhill for me.
Now i prefer the albums by Hugault (De nachtuil, laatste vlucht,....) Nobody draws planes better than he can. And the good thing is he combines planes with excellent drawings of beautifull women... Except for the real stuff, what more could a man want ?

[regi]

I can pinpoint the start of my passion for planes and flying to one precise moment.
I must have been around 5 or 6 years old when my mom and dad took me to the airport at Ostend, which at that time had an open air terrace.

By the way CX-B, Buck Danny is also one of my favorite series... i prefer the albums 10 through 19, with 'de tijger van Malakka' & 'Aanval op Malakka' as my favourites...

Euh...is this a copy-past thing? ( see my previous reply ) The terrace of Ostend airport has made a real footprint in world aviation !

Buck Danny - that you brought this up ! As a kid I found those albums top. Still have them by the way.
But Blake & Mortimer stole a piece of my heart with the double album "secret of the swordfish". I am from very common backgrounds. I got the first album for an aniversary and I received the second part just a year later. Waiting a full year , what an agony ! ( I can imagine how iPhone adepts feel with that Mk-4 and Mk-5 release )
Nostalgia...

[sn-remember]

Yup me too I am a fan of Blake&Mortimer .. But who isn't ?
BTW where can we find Buck Danny's albums nowadays in VL ? In a specialised 2nd hand booksop I know but it need to be a good one ? It's to offer my children .. and at the same time make them train their NL language skills ..héhé !!
I don't know how "Tanguy and Laverdure" translate in Dutch .. I liked them too as a kid..
As for the origins of my passion for aviation I opened up breafly here :
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=46071#p256272
Indeed passions find very often their origin in youth time.
REGARDS
Christophe

[regi]

Yup me too I am a fan of Blake&Mortimer .. But who isn't ?
BTW where can we find Buck Danny's albums nowadays in VL ? In a specialised 2nd hand booksop I know but it need to be a good one ? It's to offer my children .. and at the same time make them train their NL language skills ..héhé !!
I don't know how "Tanguy and Laverdure" translate in Dutch .. I liked them too as a kid..
As for the origins of my passion for aviation I opened up breafly here :
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=46071#p256272
Indeed passions find very often their origin in youth time.
REGARDS
Christophe

I am not a strip specialist. But when I have to buy presents for family members, I can find for young and old everything at the famous De Striep shop in Bruges:
http://www.striepclub.be/Contact.html
Give them a ring, you will get the answer immediately.

[sn-remember]

Thank you Regi I'll do that ..
It might be the opportunity to visit Bruges again

[galaxy]

I am born as the last one in a family with many children ,when at the same time a military airplane was flying over . The first sound which I made was: " wwwwairplane, wwwwairplane ". My parents, brothers and sisters looked at each other, shaking their heads, not understanding.

Now, many years later I have a family with children and each time I hear a sound of a plane, I'm running in the garden with my binoculars yelling : " airplane, airplane ". Then my family are looking to each other, shaking their heads ,not understanding , saying : " He must be born that way ".

[jan_olieslagers]

BTW where can we find Buck Danny's albums nowadays in VL

There's a very good shop in Antwerpen, at the "Vogelenmarkt", can't remember the name right now. I love to go there, only it's so frightfully dangerous to my budget - already much stressed from the occasional bit of flying...

[[edit]] found its name BEO after a brief web search - along with at least three more in or around the city

[jan_olieslagers]

I am not a strip specialist.

I think many members will join me in fervently hoping so...

BTW there are strip shops in Anrwerpen, too, more than comics shops actually...