How did you catch “The Bug”?

I didn't.

Tried some other stuff for a while before realizing that this gig pays way better and offers way more time off than anything else I had skills to do.

It's a fun job that I enjoy a lot (mostly) but can't say it was ever a bug.
 
2 things got me hooked.

As a 7 yr old got a chance to sit in a Pan Am B727 cockpit after our flight and as a young teen taking $20/20 min biplane flights at Hampton Airfield in NH at least 2-3 times a week.

Off to MUC in a few hours. Tschüss
 
I grew up on 3 East Airport Road. It was a HUD development. I would ride my bike up to the airport that had maybe 15 planes based there and about 4-6 operations on a good day. I would sit there for hours and BS with the old guy who ran the FBO for the city. It turns out that he knew my mom already, and our families became friends. He did everything he could to stoke the flames to include getting the random Citation and Lear crews to let me into their jets (factory town, some were corporate, some were cargo in from Detroit), and our families riding to airshows together. That immersion, even though it wasn't actually flying, is what really got it going. The life event twists and turns after that are just details.

I hope I can be even half as instrumental in somebody's life story.
 
It wasn't Top Gun, but an equally half-cocked movie called The Final Countdown. The 2v2 dogfight sequence between 2 F-14s and 2 A6M Zeros caught my imagination. Top Gun came a little more than half a decade later which led me into the Navy, much to my parent's disappointment. I never spoke much to my parents after I commissioned in the Navy, because they said I was throwing my life away, because the military was for losers they said. Lots of parental pressure to do something useful, like be a doctor or lawyer or engineer or something.

Anyways, I didn't have a desire to fly until I took my first flying lesson my first year in the Navy. It was turbulent and bumpy and really noisy until it came down to disconnect from the towplane. I remember the instructor (sitting in the back seat behind me) telling me to pull the big red knob - which I really didnt want to do. I was terrified and so I reached up and pulled the big red knob. The turbulence, bumps, and wind noise went away, and there was nothing but silence and smooth air as the instructor banked right and turned away from the towplane. I went from I'm done - this is not for me to OMFG this is freaking awesome. I had lots of friends that thought I was crazy for getting into the air in something that didn't have an engine.

forward 10 years later, a civilian learjet we were working with in the SoCal oparea requested to do a flyby after finishing an exercise. I briefly had thoughts of saying "negative pattern is full" but I approved the flyby and let the bridge and the captain know. Stepped out of CIC and onto the bridge to watch. When I saw the guy come by below bridge height / at flight deck edge height, that's when I made the decision to resign my commission and spend my last year in the Navy doing an airplane add-on to my private glider certificate and getting all of the other certificates to get into a civilian aviation career.
 
I have the cliche Top Gun bug...always thought that was cool, I was 3 when it came out, ended up going through 3 VHS tapes of it by the time I was 10. I grew up in a family that didn't have an aviation history, nor the means to pay for that kind of training. When I was 4, took my first flight on an ATA L-1011 from Detroit to Gatwick w/ a tech stop in Bangor...I was so utterly sure we were going to do a barrel roll and I was petrified.

Fast forward to when I was 13 took my 2nd airplane trip to Dallas from Chicago (actually started with a Saab ride from South Bend to ORD first.) We got on a United Airbus and listening to Channel 9 absolutely blew my teenage mind. There was this big symphony going on that I was never aware of as far as ATC and directions / etc. From that point I knew I wanted to fly stuff. Been scratching and clawing my way to doing that full time since then, a good 20 years later and I'm almost there.
 
Always had it. Dad was CFI before I was born and owned a flight school in the 90s in the DFW area.

I remember going on a lot of trips with him in our planes. I miss that.

Now he's a Capt for a 121 airline and he still loves it.


Late last summer dad encouraged me to look into Dispatch. The more and more I looked at it, the more and more it was just a "fit".


Here I am now, fresh out of Dispatch school and trying to get my first DX job!
 
Nora Griswold and Clark SR were a Flight attendant and airline pilot + I saw top gun and had lots of airplane stuff as a kid + I hate regular type jobs and hours, boringggg + I like motor sports, speed and engines, etc. + I like making money while enjoying the work/ travel to earn it ( My wife describes it as having a hobby I get paid for) = becoming a pilot.
 
Last edited:
I was always around aircraft, and grew up all over the world as an Air Force brat. My father flew all kinds of stuff before retiring in 1985.
Grandfather flew P-38s in WWII. I was planning to go to the AF Academy to be a fighter pilot or a cargo pilot. However, I got glasses when I was about 12 (1980-ish). My life was over. There was nothing I could do about it.
I didn't know you could train to be a pilot as a civilian until I was into my 20s.
 
Dad worked on Concorde in the 60s and went to plenty of air shows and viewing parks as a kid. Started in DVT '97 and been doing a few hours a year since under my own steam. Now up to 400+
 
Nora Griswold and Clark SR were a Flight attendant and airline pilot + I saw top gun and had lots of airplane stuff as a kid + I hate regular type jobs and hours, boringggg + I like motor sports, speed and engines, etc. + I like making money while enjoying the work/ travel to earn it ( My wife describes it as having a hobby I get paid for) = becoming a pilot.
Third generation (Mom was not a flight attendant) so I was always around it...now, regular hours suck and the rest largely reads like @BobDDuck's story.
 
Dad flew for fun, as did many of his friends. Weekends were either flying or riding bikes to the airport to sit in hangars talking about flying. Neighbor owned a few planes too, first flight was in his Lake Renegade when I was four; I continued flying with him all my life and now I give him flight reviews in his T6. The bug's been here for as long as I can remember, though lately it seems everyone is trying to exterminate it.
 
Our family vacation to Maine when i was 6 involved a Delta 727 PBI-BOS. We stayed the night at the Logan Hilton, I spent most of the night staring out the window watching planes. When I was in middle school I did a discovery flight as part of a science fair project. Most of my childhood I begged my parents to take me to the airport to watch planes which later involved photography, my other hobby.
I always wondered why the purple DC-10s never moved during the day down in FLL, luckily they occasionally do now ;).
My first takeoff in one happened to be at Ft. Lauderdale which i was lucky enough to get a local photographer to capture.
Screen Shot 2018-03-29 at 10.37.09 AM.png
 
In 2000 my family went on our first big vacation and the first time I was ever on an airplane. It was a Dash 8 from CRW-PIT. I spent the entire flight starring out the window and fell in love with flying. I was only 10 at the time and I’m still the only person in my family to fly. Now here he are 18 years later and I’m a captain at an AA owned regional in the north east.

I’m the first male in the family to not work in a coal mine. Pretty darn proud to say that.
 
Our family vacation to Maine when i was 6 involved a Delta 727 PBI-BOS. We stayed the night at the Logan Hilton, I spent most of the night staring out the window watching planes. When I was in middle school I did a discovery flight as part of a science fair project. Most of my childhood I begged my parents to take me to the airport to watch planes which later involved photography, my other hobby.
I always wondered why the purple DC-10s never moved during the day down in FLL, luckily they occasionally do now ;).
My first takeoff in one happened to be at Ft. Lauderdale which i was lucky enough to get a local photographer to capture.
View attachment 42532

That is awesome!!
 
Back
Top