There are no pilots in my family....never even knew anyone who flew!!!! But I remember when I was 4 years old, we took a family vacation from San Francisco to Montgomery, AL. When rode a Delta L-1011 to Atlanta, and I remember (clearly) sitting in my Dad's lap, wanting to know about all of the "moving things" on the wing. He very patiently explained to me that those were the control surfaces that helped the pilots control the airplane. I knew from that point on that I wanted to fly airplanes!!!!
I never flew again until I was in the ninth grade, and I rode a Navy C-9 (DC-9) from San Francisco, to North Island, CA. It was the greatest thing in the world!!!! Flew again to visit my family in Louisiana, and had Continental MD-80's for the entire trip...awesome!!!
The next trip was not so fun.....a United 737 to San Diego, for boot camp...I don't remember much about that flight, except for being kinda sick, and wanting to go home
Anyway, throughout my childhood, I remember telling everyone that I was going to fly airplanes! I didn't know how, or when, but I knew that I'd fly them someday. Everyone said I was crazy, or that I couldn't do that. My family especially pointed out many reasons to me why I wouldn't be able to be a pilot (for reasons I'll not get into....lol). It took until I was 23 to take my first lesson, but I eventually did it!!
If I had to point out the reasons that I wanted to fly, there would be alot of them. I always liked the sound of planes flying overhead. I always wondered how a pilot controlled things like yaw and roll. I never had anybody close to me that could explain them, but I thought it would be awesome to know how to do that. I remember being in high school, wondering exactly how the pilot was able to control the plane all the way to the ground, and make the plane land with the main wheels first, while the plane flew without the main wheels being lower than the nose wheel (I knew nothing about slow flight at that point...
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I didn't know what a J-3 cub was, or how much money pilots were supposed to make (or not make). All I knew was that it was pretty cool, and I wanted a piece of the action!!!