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Igniting the Spark

Ironflight

VAF Moderator / Line Boy
Mentor
{This is not strictly RV Related, and I was pretty hesitant to post it until encouraged by DR. We've had a few very busy threads this week that were fairly broad on Experimental aviation, and they got me thinking....This is vital to the future of what we do!}

A common thread among aviators today is “why aren’t there more kids getting involved in aviation?" When this question gets discussed, it often comes down to (1) they can’t afford it or (2) They simply lack the interest. As difficult as it might sound, number 1 can be fixed if we want to fix it – by giving away free rides and free opportunities to let interested kids hang around the airport and help us build airplanes for instance. But what if they simply aren’t interested? Why aren’t they? I’m sure that we all think something is wrong with a kid that doesn’t like airplanes…right? Maybe we aren’t asking the right question to solve the problem (because you can’t solve a problem unless you really understand it). The real question we need to answer first is, “Well what got YOU hooked?!”

I can tell you that my mother tells everyone that the first word I said was “airpoo” as I looked up in the sky and pointed at a passing airplane. I can’t ever remember a time when I wasn’t fascinated by anything that flew. I don’t know why – I seem to have been born with the interest. But I know that some of the things that kept me interested was seeing Whirlybirds and Sky King on TV. I built models that I bought with my small allowance. I was excited anytime I could get near an airplane- taking Dad to the local airport to catch a commercial flight, watching the floatplanes at the local dock that gave rides over Lake Bemidji. Most of the books I checked out from the library were about airplanes and flying – big books on WW II aircraft and the air war, stories of WW I fighters. I had Charles Lindbergh’s book on my bookshelf early on. My father wasn’t a pilot, but his job as an educator put him on a NASA mailing list where he received big thick reports (full of color pictures) of every manned space mission – and they came straight to me!

I flew U-control models because I couldn’t afford R/C, then got the opportunity to work on real airplanes in my early teens due to the kindness of an FBO and some of his leaseback pilots. But that wasn’t what got me interested – it KEPT me interested. I was interested because of some sort of spark set very early on. And it didn’t hurt that flying was seen as unique – it set me apart, made me special (because ALL aviators were special!), and since I wasn’t very good at sports, it gave me a niche. And…it didn’t hurt that I could read at a level well above my grade to understand those books on flying earlier than most. {Did anyone else ever have a copy of “Ann Can Fly!” in their house?}

So what got YOU interested? And how can you use that information to help get today’s kids interested? All the Young Eagle’s rides in the world won’t get them hooked if they aren’t interested – oh, they’ll take the ride…then go do something else. They need to get that spark first. How do we ignite it?

Paul
 
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I got hooked when I was seven and my family went on a trip to their home country of India. Even then, knowing that such a huge airliner (DC-9 and 747) was getting into the air just blew my mind. I remember after that trip, I cut out pictures of airplanes, glued them to cardboard and ran around with them around making airplane noises. I had my dad take me to airshows as often as we could and I learned all about flight theory well before high school. I even had the aviation phonetic alphabet memorized! I've always been a science geek and meteorology has always been an interest too so I was learning all about the weather then too. Growing up, I never thought I'd be able to afford to get into aviation but one day when I was 27 I went out for an intro flight and I made it a point to go get my license.

I don't have kids so I'm not sure what can "ignite the spark". I've taken friends flying, yet no interest. (I'm not that bad of a pilot!) I was baffled when I walked into my first RAA (Recreational Aircraft Association) meeting a few years ago and I was the youngest person there -- I was 37.

I'm the only aviator in my family so my spark was lit on my own, just from a family trip. Sometimes all it takes is just that one experience.
 
Short version: My family got me interested in aviation at an early age.


Long version:

My dad and both of my grandfathers worked at Lockheed Georgia. Even as a little kid, i went to multiple open houses there, and was standing at the end of the runway in June 1968 to witness the first flight of the C-5. I was about 3 1/2 and still remember it. Today, I live inside the pattern for Dobbins ARB, where the Lockheed factory is co-located. I still get to see C-5's from time to time and C-130's almost every day.

When I was very young, my dad and I used to build models together. At first he did most of the building and I watched. I remember a PBY, a Spitfire, and an ME-109. Then I started helping. He was amazed when I built my first model all by myself. I couldn't read, but the pictures in the instructions were plenty for me. I was probably 5 years old. The model was a 1:72nd scale P-36. It was the first of hundreds.

I had a second cousin who had a Champ and his dad had a C-172. They took me flying when I was 4 or 5. Since the Champ provided my first airplane ride (It was VERY loud, by the way), I've always wanted a Champ. Which explains the pile of Aeronca parts in my basement.

Dad took me to see "The Battle of Britain" twice when it came out in 1969. I was almost 5 years old. I still want a Spitfire, but they aren't as affordable as Champs.

At some point, my grandparents purchased a whole display box full of North Pacific balsa gliders and rubber band powered airplanes. The box probably held 100 of them. My favorite was the Sleek Streak. Wind one up 100+ turns and it would really go. It took me years to go through that box of airplanes, but I eventually managed to break 'em, wear 'em out, or get all of them irretrievably stuck in trees. I learned a lot about aerodynamics, airframe repairs, and aircraft performance from those little airplanes. I think I still have a callus on my finger from winding them.

By about the third grade, I was a prolific reader. Guess what I read? Airplane books, of course. Richard Bach, Martin Caidin, and a bunch of others. The teachers used to call my mom and complain that they caught me reading in class again. Mom <a teacher herself> later confided that she didn't know how to respond when another teacher complained that I was reading.

The first experimental aircraft I remember seeing was a KR-2. I was probably 10 or so. The airplane was so interesting, and I was so insistant, my dad drove us over to the local airfield to watch it do touch and go's. When it landed, we walked over and spoke with the pilot.

Somehow, the last 36 years have been a continuation of the first 10.

By the way, remember the KR-2 and its pilot? I probably reconnected with both of them when I joined the local EAA chapter 15 years ago.
 
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My Dad and my brothers

With trying to feed seven kids, there was never extra money for such extravagances as flying; however, my father always subscribed to Flying when I was growing up.

I worked my way through rubber band power balsa planes, plastic models, tissue paper covered balsa models, string controlled airplanes and even designed and built a few unique ones. (I found with enough power, you can make a Coke can fly.)

When I was 22 and working on my PPL, I never told my parents until I was able to fly home and give them a ride. Unfortunately my father died before I started on the RV. He would have loved it but I can hear him in the back of my head saying, ?Build the Rocket! Why do you want to go slow??
 
I give a lot of YE rides and you are correct, it doesn't light the spark in these kids.

For me, it was a flight in a float plane when I was about 10 or so. A friend of my dad visited us on Mackinac Island one summer and offered me a ride in his plane to go island hopping. Had no idea what I was getting into but I knew then and there that float planes are really cool!

30 plus years later and after 140 or so jumps under the canopy, I realized the real reason I enjoyed skydiving so much was really being in and around airplanes. After watching so many people get banged up jumping, I hung it up and decided to get a pilots license. The rest is history but it really started with that first float plane ride.

I've thought a lot about how to get kids interested now a days. Seems that most YE kids are there because their parents drove them there. They seem to enjoy the ride but don't seem to ask the right questions afterwords. I really prefer to give a ride to one kid at a time and not during a large YE event. I like to have them meet me at the hanger and help pull the plane out and start living the process. It allows a lot more time talking about flying and I think gives them a better view of what aviation is all about. I also like to have the parents hang out at the FBO picnic table and wait for us to come past. Time for photos later.

I always hope that this one on one approach may light their interest better than just getting a quick ride at an event. I enjoy it a lot more.
 
My background sounds a lot like yours, Paul!

Nobody in my family flies, but my parents were artists with their own art gallery in our house when I was young. My dad carved wood bird sculptures and we were dedicated birdwatching freaks, so I liked things that flew and I liked making things from a very young age. If you want the whole boring story, type my name in YouTube and you'll find my presentation at last year's AMA expo. (that's Academy of Model Aeronautics, not American Medical Assn...) Anyway, modeling was my inroad to full-scale. Building models shaped my life's path.

Older modelers & pilots complain that kids don't like airplanes anymore, but I think the reality is that aviation is SO mainstream now that most kids just don't notice planes anymore. Back when most EAA members were kids, the heroes were WWII aces and the first jet pilots... and the first astronauts. Ordinary kids back then were enamored with flight because it was still new and growing rapidly. Now, the Extraordinary kids love airplanes. How to ignite the spark? It's different for everyone... I'm sure Young Eagles doesn't hurt! I was a Young Eagle and flew my own YE's as soon as I got my private ticket, but I didn't tell anyone at EAA that I would have become a pilot without YE... whoops, I just did! :eek:. Actually, I grew up 2 hours from OSH and my dad took me there for the first time when I was 10. I still have those first issues of Sport Aviation that we got when he had to join EAA to get us on the "flight line." Still harboring dreams of making it into SA with my plane someday too, but that's for another thread... :eek:
 
My story is just about the same as Paul's story word for word with just a different name filled in on the end (and we grew up near the same airport at the same time, but never met... go figure).

I am sure that with the right approach, the spark can be lit in a lot of kids that didn't start out with it on their own, but my approach so far has been to reach out to teens that seem to have the spark already. If a kid comes to me and asks for a ride, I say when are you ready to go? If they are willing to ask, I know they have a strong desire.
The same approach worked with our first Teen Flight project. We spread the word and then let them come to us. We ended up with a great group of guys that were very motivated. A large percentage of them are now on a fast track to a carrier in some way connected to aviation. HERE is a little story that was just published about one of them.

It would be great to find a way to preach (and have people listen) flying for fun to the masses. In the mean time, please, please, pleeeease, do not pass up any opportunity when a kid shows an obvious sign that the spark is already lit... throw a bucket of avgas on it and make it blaze.

Like Paul said, a lot of the time it comes down to cost (it also doesn't help that the majority of airports near metro areas where a lot of kids live, are lock down tighter than Fort Knox). If we all took a bit of time to make it outwardly known that we enjoy introducing kids to aviation, the word will slowly spread and the kids that want that opportunity will come.




Can you tell I am a bit passionate about this subject? ;)
 
My son got me hooked

The nurse that works with me has two pilot sons. One, an Embry Riddle grad and CFI named Taylor was home visiting a while back, and found out that my son, age 13 then, was pretty passionate about anything mechanical (at that time mostly F1 racers, and the Shelby Cobra). He asked if Doug would be "interested in going for a flight in a Cessna". Of course he was. On the day of the flight, Taylor showed him how to preflight a plane, which was cool enough since it involved getting up close and personal with an engine. Then Taylor said, "you sit here" pointing to the left front seat. He then talked Doug through a runup, takeoff and up in to the sky. Then he said, "Its your plane. You can go anywhere"

Doug did stalls, a weightless parabola, and a touch and go (Taylor discretely "guiding" the controls). After a centerline landing (Taylor on rudder), Doug's first flight was done. Let me tell you, he could barely walk, he was so excited.

Since we (I) didn't really know where to go from there, Doug researched that our local community college had a highly regarded flight training program. Doug wanted to attend, but was intimidated that he was only 13 and he would be attending "college" (albeit through the community ed program, not as a student) for ground school. I offered to attend with him (no previous flight experience). I had no intention of getting hooked, but I did.

From there, we found our way to a Cessna flight school near us. By then I had taken and passed the PP written exam (with zero hours in the cockpit!)

Doug is nearly 15 now, with 50 hours of dual logged. Counting the hours until his 16th Bday and soloing

When you take that little person up for that first flight, I guess you can't know what will happen. For them, or for you
 
Sky King!

And when I was a young kid we moved to Wichita. My dad worked for Cessna. SkyKing would come in for a new bird - it was always a big deal. On Christmas we'd drive my Ms Beech's house and look at all the Christmas lights. Santa would also arrive at the airport in a Cessna (at least on the days I went).

By my senior year of high school we ended up in Dayton, Oh. I had a wild hair and took lessons from a little grass strip in Mad River, Oh in a Citabria. I didn't really care about the license, I just wanted to fly.

I still do want to fly... :)

Bob
 
First make sure your timing is..... wait a minute, this isn't about magnetos is it? In that case I have no clue. Smarter people than me have been working on this for like 3 decades.
 
Airplanes and Animal Crackers....

Good thread Paul.....

Before I get started:

1) This is the baby sign language for airplane.
http://www.babies-and-sign-language.com/infant-toddler-child-kid-sign-for-airplane-plane.html

2) This is a video of my 18 month old son last weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TlRVSu_Tfg

How cool is that???

If there had been a helicopter in the video, he would have used the sign for it too. He's probably the only 18 month old that can legitimately tell the difference between an airplane and helicopter regardless of whether it's flying or not.

My favorite part is around 1:13 when the bright Extra 300 taxi's by and he starts shouting "Da-Da! Da-Da!" to make sure I didn't miss it.

I agree on the Young Eagles part. There are plenty of kids who want to take an airplane ride but there aren't many that are genuinely interested in flying. While it's a nice story, I don't think it's the answer. But at the same time, I don't know what is.

I got interested in aviation through airshows and meeting pilots. I thought pilots were some of the sharpest people on the planet and my parents made sure to reinforce that point. I always had a lot of respect for pilots. I spent hours flying the earliest flight sims I could find in the late-80's/early-90's.

I always wanted to fly, but never could afford it. But as soon as I could afford it (and before I got married) I became a pilot of my own. The rest is history.

But for me it started at airshows, meeting the pilots, and having parents who (unknowingly) set a personal goal for me because of the respect they gave me for pilots.

Phil
 
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EAA

EAA 1985 Concorde flys in to Oshkosh, that got me there but the idea of a plane you can build and afford is what really did it. I know and agree Oshkosh should be about what we all here know and love but with out some of these other big attractions it may be hard to attract people to ignite there interest in aviation.

Paul, was there any way that the shuttle could have ever landed at Oshkosh?
 
I had one uncle who was a pilot, and flew a Citabria, I rode in it one time at a very young age. He sold the plane shortly after that ride. No one else in my family had any interest in Aviation. I can remember as a kid thinking how cool airplanes were, but never took much interest.
One day just 5 years ago one of my buddies said he wanted to go check out flight schools and there rates. I said alright lets go, we went to several and the last one we visited he told the instructor that I wanted to learn how to fly. I looked at them both kind of surprised and said when do we start. Next thing I know I’m flying in an old Cessna 152, and I can remember Ed telling me “I get everyone in the seat of the airplane first a lot of instructors prefer to do ground school, but I like to get people flying”. I loved it!! I was hooked and ready to learn, it became even more cemented when Ed gave me a ride in his RV-6A. I bought a tail kit within a week! Now just five years later after building an RV I can’t imagine life without an airplane. For me it is a great way of getting away from the daily routine of life, because when I go flying I think of nothing, but flying. It’s challenging, fun, and gets me away.
That said I don’t think it is for everyone, but the least we can do is spark the interest in the few. We may give twenty people rides in our planes, and if we are lucky enough to have sparked the interest in just one of them we have furthered our goal. I will also add that the RV community has given me some really great friends, and further deepened my interest in aviation.
 
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The spark

While admirable, I think trying to ignite the spark in the kids and hoping it will pay dividends 20 years later isn't going to cut it. I think we need to ignite the spark in the 40 to 50 year old crowd that can afford to do this.

How many guys (or gals) have you heard say "I've always wanted to do that" when you mention flying. Give one of those people a ride.

Just my 2 cents.
 
When I was 22 and working on my PPL, I never told my parents until I was able to fly home and give them a ride. Unfortunately my father died before I started on the RV. He would have loved it but I can hear him in the back of my head saying, ?Build the Rocket! Why do you want to go slow??

And your mother saying, "watch where you are going"..............:D
 
my story is slightly different and i think proof that demo flights at a too young stage may not be as effective.

our family had absolutely no connection to aviation other than an uncle who had a PPL in the eighties. however, this wasn't the typical airplane buff and i think he had it more for "social status" reasons, always barely beating minimum hour requirements. besides travelling, diving etc... i'm sure you all know these types. so i did get one or two rides as presents at less than seven years old. they were fun, but that's not what got me hooked to aviation.

at that age i was completely into trains, model trains, and knew i was going to become a train engine driver. as is/was probably every second swiss boy, even today. for most americans this is probably hard to grasp if you haven't visited. switzerland is the #1 railroad country of the world. very dense network, nice modern trains, spectacular and scenic routes, and not just slow, old and beat-up freight trains ;-) and i know of few families that don't have model trains that get handed down from one generation to the next.

the tipping point for me was an organized visit to the local regional airport and most notably the tower, during summer break at about age 13.
there were a few regional airliners besides all the small planes, and sitting in the air conditioned tower cab watching over all these movements somehow got me excited...

the interest in trains then dropped to close to zero and moved to 50% computers / 50% aviation, with an edge to aviation. and i knew from there on that i was either going to be an air traffic controller or a pilot.
computers were simply easier to come by, so most actual time was spent on them, but despite this, aviation had the stronger "pull".

following this, the flying bug bit and i got rides etc... that really served to make me committed in the long run. i also remember seeing "top gun" for the first time. and one ride that i memorize particularly well was a "payback" for fixing the computer of a schoolmate's dad, who was a former air force pilot. he picked me up with his harley, took me to the airfield, and went flying with an open-cockpit aerobatic bucker jungmann. awesome (less the open-cockpit ;-)
also, the perfect merge of computers and aviation was flight simulator, which got me a lot of early basics, like VOR navigation etc... I don't think it helped much for the actual flying, but it made the environment and all the abbreviations much less intimidating, offering a playful approach to many topics.

so, overall i think it was the "big things moving" that got me fascinated and not so much the "small plane flying" in the first place. this was just the logic follow-up and turned out to be equally strong. and my love for aviation covers both aspects obviously.

now that we started cruising on big cruiseships for vacation, i often thought, had i grown up near the sea, chances are i might have gotten involved in big ships as well...

so my recommendations to get the next generation into aviation:
- despite all the security paranoia, find ways to get school-kids behind the scenes of large and small airports.
- target the right age group, i'd say 12-16.
- maintenance hangars, control towers, etc... can be just as much of an initial draw as planes. in my case it wasn't like i was totally impressed by small planes.
- try to focus young eagles rides on people that may have already crossed a certain level of interest as they help firm up the decision. but i don't think they are very effective if you just spread them on people that are still drifting in the search for their place in life and interests (or whether they even have any *g*).

rgds, bernie
 
Another similar story to yours, Paul. Grew up in Wichita, Dad worked at Boeing, Mom was "stay at home" most of the time, but worked at Cessna on and off when money was tight.
My Dad scraped together the money to buy a Porterfield with one of his buddies. He learned to fly in that airplane and I would say that was the spark for me. Hanging out at Rawdon Field in Wichita with my little brother while Dad took lessons from Rip Gooch. I built so many models during those years that I had trouble finding shelf space for them. I also built and flew control line models. Sky King and Whirly-Birds were on my list, as well. I just lived and breathed airplanes. Interestingly, neither one of my brothers, or my sister were bitten by the bug. I, too, was a serious reader at an early age.
I got a job at Cessna as a gopher in the print shop when I was 18, just so I could join their employee flying club and learn to fly. Cessna provided the club with a fleet of new 150's and 172's every year. A 150 went for $4 per hour wet, and the instructor was $4.25. $172's were $5 per hour. :)
Then, Uncle Sam told me he would teach me to fly helicopters. There were a couple of serious strings attached to the offer, but I jumped at the chance.

I think previous comments about the fact that aviation was still new and exciting in those days is a key element. I am not sure that we will ever see that environment again. My son grew up with me flying airplanes for a living, and having our own airplane in a hangar on a grass field. I suspect he never thought of that as being anything out of the ordinary. He never got interested.

The city I live in now just put a very nice, new skateboard park in right across the street from the airport. These kids are a stones throw from my hangar, but there is no way for them to actually get on the airport property. More importantly, they just have no interest in the airplanes that are taking off right across the street.

I wish I had the answer.
 
Wanted to be an astronaut in my very early teens. Probably fueled by all the StarWars sequels from the time. Figured out being a military pilot was probably the best route and the timing of TopGun (I was 16) was perfect.
Bad eyesight kept me out of military cockpits, but I still ended up flying professionally and for fun! I'm 40 now and I can't image doing anything else.

Great thread Paul!
 
It's the spark.

I have to fall in the "You either have the 'spark, or you don't'", crowd.

We moved to Rhodesia from South Africa when I was 5 and the first time I saw an airplane fly by, I was fascinated and just Had to go flying!.

I rode my bike miles to the airport on Saturdays to watch the Jaguars and Morris's racing on the aerodrome circuit, converted to a race track.

We had "Hobby shops" since we had no TV system then and I built rubber band powered gliders after school studies, if we weren't at the swimming pool and my time was spent dreaming about airplanes.

My uncle Koos Venter, was a well-to-do home builder in Kempton Park, South Africa and flew the 700 miles north for a visit one year, in his Piper Tri-Pacer and my chance had finally come!

When we lifted off, my face boiled flush from ecstacy as a ten year old and I was totally beside myself!

...and you know what? To this day, I still run outside when I hear an airplane go by and look up....and it's 55 years and 18,000 flying hours later, since that first flight!

It's that spark thing:)
 
When I was 8 or so, while my father was taking flying lessons I hung out at the airport. Eventually my dad bought Piper Cherokee, (which I was able to purchase 20 years later from someone else). When I was 16 or so, he brought me to the McAllister School of Flying where I took my first flight lesson. I started taking Aviation Maintenance Tech, in high school (Yakima Valley Vocational Skills Center) my junior year and my teacher was Ron Nulph (who had all his fingers blown off in a pyrotechnics accident). Ron, was an aerospace engineer with more zeal than anyone I had every met. He built a road legal Vega that was on the covers of both Hot Rod and CarCraft. At the time the Space Shuttle was in it's early life and we studied every inch and detail of it. IT TURNED MY LIFE AROUND! I have been hanging out at airports ever since.
 
I can remember my first interest in aviation. We were living in Ohio, and a flight of three P-51s went over pretty low, probably National Guard planes. I can remember exactly where I was, and their direction within a few degrees. I was about four years old. The first conversation I can remember was asking dad what would happen if one wing came off--would the other go up or down? (I think that was answered on a thread here last year) :)

Dad worked at Aeronca, and not long after he got me a ride in a Champ. I remember it well. Dad had been a run-up crew chief at the largest base in the world during the war and knew planes well, but he never got a license, so I was 22 before I started flying. All those wasted years...

I give YE rides, too, and I think it is possible to spot those who really are moved by the flight, and those who just have fun. The proportion is much higher than those who do anything about it, and to some extent, that is our fault IMHO. People haven't changed all that much since I learned to fly, but situations have changed dramatically. Cost and the number of other things vying for our time have put aviation at a disadvantage. We are the only ones who can fight that.

You all know what I did--starting a high school build project. Maybe that isn't for you, but anyone can take a kid to Oshkosh, or at least invite them to an EAA meeting. Invite them along on the next fly-out. Start a ground school program. Don't leave them with just a taste and longing for more. Personal experience shows me that YE is a good first step, but only that, and a successful approach requires a guiding hand until they are ready to walk on their own. One third of our EAA Chapter is now builders under 18 years old. Take the extra effort--it is worth it!

Bob
 
I wish I knew where the spark came from. As far back as anyone remembers little Danny liked airplanes and little David (my brother) liked boats. There's even a Christmas morning home movie circa 1959; we come down the stairs, Dave (5) heads straight for the submarine and I (4) grab the C-119.

Dave served in attack subs. I became a pilot.

Rode a Constellation to see grandparents in Miami at age 2. I don't remember the trip but maybe that was it. When I was 5 my Mom took me to the Hershey Airport and bought us a ride in a C-172. (Tells you a lot about my mother; it was her own first ride in a small airplane.) My earliest aviation memory is the runway falling away outside the right rear window.
 
Aviation has been lifelong for me...

I can honestly say that I don't remember not having aviation be a huge part of my life...thanks Dad! My dad got his PPL in 77 or so, after many years of loving aviation as an outsider. His dad and grandfather had both worked in aviation, but never flew or had any interest in flying.

Oshkosh was "the family vacation" for as long as I have been around. My dads first trip was in 81, I believe...and mine 82...yes I was 18 months old in 82. I have only miss two times since then.

I had the bug long before I knew it. I remember seeing the Columbia space shuttle at the 84 worlds fair in New Orleans. Talk about one impressed 3 year old! Some things just never leave your mind! The first Concorde at Oshkosh is right up there too. And how about the Voyager! I can also remember being the only 5 year old that understood or cared what was going on with the Challenger...my mom told me that I was very concerned that it was the shuttle I saw. It still breaks my heart that the shuttle program has ended...but that's a different discussion where I would have to get out my soapbox...

I got my PPL weeks after my 17th birthday, then flew my 150 to Oshkosh a few months later. I had an old crappy truck so that I could have an old crappy 150 too!

One of the coolest things for me is that I appear to have already infected my daughter with aviation. She is 22 months old and has been noticing airplanes and doing the sign for airplane for quite some time. My favorite thing was that for a while, anything flying was an airplane. Yes, Madi has been to Oshkosh twice already.

When I flew the 4 for the second time she and my wife were outside, at our house, which is 2 miles off the end of the runway at KASG, and she pointed me out to my wife. Carrie said "yep that's Daddy" and Madi watched me until out of sight.

I can't even begin to express how grateful and blessed I am that I get to work in aviation. Becoming friends with many of the people on this site and so many people over the years at Oshkosh is yet another wonderful part of aviation for me.

How fitting is it that as I write this, I am sitting in my hotel room at Copperstate?

Thanks for the great thread Paul!

Commit aviation as much as possible and share it with as many people as possible...it just might make a difference.
 
Unfortunately computers/electronics light the spark now

I was finally, at age 38, able to afford my ppc. Now at 41 installing wings/emp preparing for first flight soon. My wife(elem teacher) and I have been married since 18. We have had to sacrifice alot to become debt free. It took longer than we would have liked, but figured once flying we may be able to afford more avgas.
I did not have any pilots in the family or wealthy parents. I started out watching planes fly over with binoculars. Then RC at 13. Then 5 yrs in the Army. My first ride was on a UH-60A Blackhawk. With an 11 and 8 yr old a four place was a must.
I was listening to people talk at a "Wings n Wheels" event last weekend. Most mentioned not being able to fit or not being able to afford them. Sad but true for many.
I do agree with a prior poster...35-50 yr olds should be a target age too. In the past five years, I have been ask to fly by three pilots. Two are rv guys and I really appreciate it when money is tight. Most fly alone if they fly at all at my
airport. How often do we see a newspaper article or VAF post mentioning a first flight with some 40 yr old? If you get that 40 yr old interested they are more likely to follow through with a ppc/plane purchase or build.
 
I'm not certain all of this is connected, but my dad was aeronautical engineer. He worked for Boing until I was 4 and then for the CIA. He shared a lot of technical info helping me build better (or just different) balsa wood gliders and other stories that were not classified. Occasionally we'd go out to Bailey's Cross Roads and watch the planes (that airport is long gone). He was sharing a dream of his. He never flew but claimed he always wanted to. I was pretty sure I did too.

Fast forward to my late 20's and hang gliding was becoming popular. My dad said it was to dangerous (he'd done some work on the Rogallo Wing - apparently NASA considered it instead of parachutes for the early space capsules). Ignoring my dad, I learned to fly a hang glider and made it to mountain flying and soaring. Then came kids. I'd seen a number of people die doing stuff I thought was needlessly risky. I avoided the stupid stuff and figured I was safe. Then a pretty good flying buddy died. He was coming in for a landing with a new higher performance glider and there was wind shadow behind some trees, he stalled at about 40' and nosed in. We were still figuring out how to fly those gliders. The risks hit home and I didn't want to leave my kid(s) orphaned. The glider is still in the garage.

Fast forward about 20 more years, I'm in my mid 40's and a PPL is on my bucket list. I was driving home from a meeting and thought 'when the dickens are you going to do get your PPL?' I stopped at the airport on the way home and bought a PPL learners kit, a headset, and signed up for a lesson the next day. They wanted to sell me a demo ride but a wanted a lesson - at that point I knew I wanted to fly. Before my lessons were done I had purchased a Cherokee 140 (our rental planes were not properly maintained).

The rest is history. I still fly the Cherokee and hopefully I'm less than a year away from finishing a 9A.

What caused the spark? I'm sure having aviation in my family was part of it. My brother learned to fly and owned a Cherokee 6 until he lost his medical. Mostly I stay in it because I enjoy it a lot but there are deterrents. I think a two pronged approach to getting people into the sport would be best. Encourage the spark and remove the deterrents.

The cost of aviation is a deterrent. The cost of the plane isn't the real deal stopper (well it is for new certified aircraft for me and I suspect many others). But, there's a plethora of affordable used aircraft; it's the gas and maintenance that really eats into the budget. Why is auto fuel nominally 3.00-3.50/gal and avgas is almost double that? At 8-9 gph it limits how many hours I get per month. Why does the facet fuel pump sell for <$50 at NAPA and >$500 when Piper puts a part number on it? Why does the FAA require Piper to put that part number on it, adding no value, only cost and paperwork. The FAA medical requirements are another hindrance. I fly with a waiver now. Darn near every year my AMA gives me a medical and then the FAA says 'not so fast.' Typically I wait from June until September for the FAA to issue a back dated medical. In the meantime I can't fly during prime flying weather when there's light to fly after work. And what about all the TFRs - both the pop up and the rest? It is now impossible to simply go for a fun local flight without a briefing.

As for giving the spark to others, I'm sure I don't have the full answer but when friends show an interest, take them flying. Not just once but repeatedly. I think what Van's and others are doing to get teenagers building a plane and then flying at least to the solo stage is HUGE. I suspect this really could be the future of general aviation. It involves a commitment to spend months building and learning. It is goal oriented and gives these young adults a real understanding of aircraft, aviation, and they have a mentor. The mentor, if it works, is a relationship. The goal of flying is an incentive and the building commitment results in more than eduction. It shows the student that building a plane is possible and not some crazy idea.

In short, the process Van is promoting goes way beyond YE in terms of creating the spark. It creates involvement, understanding, relationships, and recognition of what's possible. I'd like our EAA Chapter to do a project like this.
 
You Can't Put in What God Left Out.

While admirable, I think trying to ignite the spark in the kids and hoping it will pay dividends 20 years later isn't going to cut it.....
I tend to agree with Robert's opinion. The spark either spontaneously combusts or it does not. I am the only member of my immediate family that ever cared about airplanes. As a young child, the spark really ignited when I received my first plastic model, a Christmas gift from a dear uncle. No matter that I smeared glue all over the place putting it together. I hand-flew sorties with that model running through the house one room after another. Every day after grade school my 2 brothers I would fight over the 4:00 P.M. TV programming. Those two siblings always wanted to watch the Three Stooges while I vastly preferred "The Whirlybirds." Mom was always the final arbiter. My brothers and I are all much older now but I have found that as we journey through this life, some things never really change.
 
Lake Bemidji

It's interesting to me that two on this list grew up around Bemidji. I got my first airplane ride EVER on a floatplane from Lake Bemidji back in the 60's. I begged my Uncle, who swore he'd never fly again after WWII, to buy us a ride and he finally relented and it was soooo neat. I vividly remember it to this day.

I got the "bug" at a very young age also. For as long as I remember, I've put together models and wanted to fly. When there was a group of men in town that flew U control stuff every Sunday and I never missed watching then when I got older and out of HS I built my first one. I was fortunate to live near Sig Manufacturing where a lot of "kits" were made. The owner's of Sig's
flew in several local airshows every year in a "clipped wing" cub and a bi-plane that I believe was a Pitts but never knew for sure. They had a grass strip with several planes based there and on the weekends, sometimes I'd talk Dad into taking me there to watch. I got several rides there also. Mr. and Mrs. Sigafoose were really nice people and loved to give rides.

I didn't think I would ever be able to afford to learn so I kind of gave up until later. Finally in '84 I sold my snowmobile and got enough money from the sale of it that I got my PPL. What an amazing hobby this is.
 
Born with it.

Like many who have already posted, I was interested in planes and flying longer than I can remember.

Born on an Air Force base, my family lived in the flight path for the main runway at March AFB. I still remember planes going over head, lots and lots of them. B52, C119, B58, F1xx-----sometimes a large flight of aircraft in formation even. I still have an old photo of a flight of B36s taken from our back yard.

My first word alleged to be "Airplane".

Built plastic models, then on to balsa rubber band power, to free flight glow.

Flew R/C, because I could not keep a U-control in the air for more than a turn or two. Anybody remember the old Ace pulse systems?? Still have it out in the hangar.

Began flight training in my early 20s, after finally being able to afford it.

Now 40+ years as a pilot I still love it.
 
It was Sky King and Whirlybirds - the two TV shows I tried to never miss. Followed by a fixation with science fiction, space, astronauts (I had scrapbooks of the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo programs). When older I cut lawns to pay for flying lessons, and was in an Aviation Explorer Post (but never ONCE got to ride in a plane in the Explorers). I "dropped out" of flying during my college and middle-aged years, and finally got my ticket at age 52...
 
Airplane Fever

I've loved airplanes from day one. I call it airplane fever and I think people are born with it. But very few.

As a kid I flew the Cox PT19 U-Control plane. Then in high school I got a job washing airplanes for a flying club. That led to taking flying lessons and getting my PPL. But then I went off to college and didn't really fly for over 20 years because of a Navy career and family. During that time I flew radio-control to satisfy the fever.

I had always assumed owning my own airplane was a dream; that it would never happen. And that was just something like a Cessna 150; owning a plane with RV performance never crossed my mind. Then we finally settled down in one place. My brother-in-law, also afflicted with airplane fever, had restored and flown numerous fixer-uppers. He showed me it was possible to own your own airplane. He helped me get started. We jointly bought and restored an Ultralight, glider and Citabria. Then I built the RV which took me to a new level.

I like to take people for rides and give lots of them -- I built the side-by-side for that purpose. People mostly enjoy them but only two riders have gone on to flying lessons and only one finished. My theory is unless you have the fever you won't do it. Too expensive, too much risk and too much effort. For those with the fever, the joy of flying is worth the expense, risk and effort. I don't know what the answer is. The rising cost of AvGas and increased regulation are making things worse, but they are beyond our control.
 
Maybe parents replacing quads, dirt bikes, snowmobiles, jet skis, etc with ultralights would help. Of course the attrition rate would be high! For a while in the 80's I thought ultralights would be the bike gangs of the future. Guess not.
 
Always thought airplanes were cool; then, the summer of 1970ish when I was about 8 years old my uncle flew from upstate New York to our house in eastern Pennsylvaina in his Tri-Pacer for a visit. While he was there he took my brother and I for a ride and the hook was set. After that, anything airplane related caught my attention toys, movies, books, whatever. Then TV helped fan the fire, with shows like Baa-Baa Black Sheep, re-runs of Twelve O’Clock High and the afternoon Dialing-for-Dollars movie showing things like John Wayne in The Flying Tigers and other WWII aviation centered movies didn’t help. Top this off the fact my much older cousin flew F-105F Wild Weasels, I was “all in” as far as airplanes go. While other guys my age dreamed of playing in the Superbowl, images of P-40s, Mustangs, Thunderbolts and Jimmy Doolittle's B-25 raiders danced in my head.

After graduation from high school I enlisted in the USAF and spent 24 years as a maintenance guy loading bombs and bullets on B-52s, F-16s, F-15s and A10s. Even got to fly in em’ too with two F-15D rides over Florida’s Gulf Coast and a 1.5 in the backseat of an F-16D over South Korea. While all this was going on I found the time to earn both a Bachelors and Masters degree from a large aeronautical university based in Daytona Beach, Fla. In the meantime I logged a grand total of 24 hrs as a student pilot and even got through the initial pattern solo before finances put the dream of a pilot’s license on hold for a while.

Still dreaming of owning my own airplane; an RV-8. It’ll happen… someday.
 
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The funny thing is, I honestly can't identify any particular watershed event in my life that got me excited about aviation. The closest thing I can ever think of is this: when I was growing up, our house was apparently under a low-altitude military training route. It was a very regular occurrence for fighters to come screaming over the house at what had to have been 500' AGL or below.

They scared the absolute **** out of me as a kid. I'd hear them coming, run screaming into the house, and fling myself under the bed for fear of being bombed.

Somewhere between those times and when I was about ten or so, I developed a real obsession with flying. The low-flying fighters went from scary to ridiculously cool. But I never had much chance to be near flying. No one in my immediate family flew, I had no direct exposure to flying, but it still happened.

I don't know what the point of this is, except that maybe I'm with Pierre that the spark either exists or it doesn't. But even with that belief, that spark needs some nurturing if it's ever going to turn into anything else.

With some proper nurturing, I'd probably be in a very different career field. A little real-world flight experience and the right connections probably would have pushed me into an aviation career, but I didn't have those experiences. I still found my way into the cockpit, but at a much later stage of life.

So maybe the point here is to try and find the right people to take for those flights. Parents bringing their kids out for novelty rides and such is still great and all-exposure itself isn't worthless-but maybe the real people to focus on are the ones you see over and over at the airport fence with a longing look in their eyes. Find the existing spark and nurture it.
 
...switch on....but which one?

omigawd....Ann CAN fly!?!? I have that book, still!..the author was a bit ahead of his time, promoting women in aviation, but funny how the same businessman is flying the same Cessna.... 40 or 50 years later!
I got the spark from my dad, repeat offender and pioneer homebuilder in our area.
While this may not answer the question why, lets consider ourselves as kids in 1960-70 etc. There were about 100 things that a youngster could do, and about 1% ended up being involved in aviation in one way or another. (While a confirmed airplane nut, I ended up building and racing stock cars with my buddies, who were not air-heads.)
Today, youngsters have more like 1000 things they can do, and 80% of those didn't exist in our youth. If they aren't playing Xbox live, they are programming some iPhone app, or one of the hundreds of other computer related things.
Thus, the 1% of kids who build, talk, read about, or fly airplanes, becomes 0.1%.
Not so much that kids are so different; but the world around them sure is!
 
I wanted to fly since I understood there was such a thing as flying. One of the more memorable things was when a crew chief at Hickam let me sit in an F-105 that was in transit to southeast asia in the early days of that war. Having the wrong woman in my life deterred me for a while. Between bouts as a rocket scientist, I was a battle damage repair engineer in the Air Force, and later a staff officer at a CSAR unit, but as a second-class, non-rated officer. After I retired, I got to feed my dream and fly. Now, I want my own plane; just my "own plane" is a two-seat tandem with a lot of high and fast associated with it. The -8 fits the bill. It's got my son excited about flying as well, so maybe he inherited something from me after all.

Sometimes life gets in the way, but that spark never truly dies unless you let it.
 
Can't Remember When

I don't remember a time that I didn't have a fascination with aviation. I am a 4th Generation Pilot.

My Great Grandfather Harmon started out in the Army Air Core and became an instructor. Later he ferried B-29's across the pond to the front lines. After the War he started Hollister Air Service (now gone) in Hollister, CA.

My Grandfather Harmon started flying before he could drive. His brother was so ambitous that on his 16th Birthday he soloed 16 different airplanes. My Grandmother came in and she learned to fly. In 1977 (the year I was born) they bought new from Cessna a Hawk XP2. It had a constant speed prop with 210 HP in a standard 172. This was the first airplane I flew in and I was less than a year old when that happened.

Keeping the tradition alive, my Aunt (My Mom's younger sister from the Harmon Side) was a pilot, and she married my Dad's younger and he became a pilot. My Uncle still flies his Piper Arrow from Colombia, CA to San Jose a couple times a week to commute to work in the bay area.

I Got my private license at Chandler Airport in 1999 when I was working as a fueler. Then you could get a Piper Warrior for $35 and hour wet. Dual was $55. In 2001 I was studying at Comair Aviaiton Academy working on my Instrument Rating when 9/11 happened. I went through and got all my CFI, CFII, and Multi Commercial, and then was offered a Job in Boston at $10 a flight hour. Knowing that we would go broke in Boston we moved to Utah where my wife is from, and we thought we had a Job with a local college as an instructor, but when we got here the story changed.

I have not flown much since 2003, and it eats me up all the time. Hence the reason I need to build a plane. I will be building and RV-8, and I will be fliying the heck out of it.

BTW, my 4 year old son is fanatical about airplanes. He wants to learn how to fly. He will be helping me build our -8.
 
The spark is like the nature/nurture argument, it is some of both. For some it is more nature, and for others, nurture.

The spark has to be there, but you need fuel too, plus air.

My father had a B-24 shot out from under him (as a gunner) a couple decades before I was born. He also took some flying lessons not long after that with GI Bill money, but I think the spin training made him reevaluate. I remember him recalling spins and how he thought to himself that "a guy could get killed doing this." He was a young father with kids under 5, and I think he decided flying just wasn't worth the risk. However, there was at least some interest in aviation there. He had the spark, he had the fuel, but the "air" ran out.

I have always been interested, although not fanatical, about a lot of military stuff. I built tank and warship models, and played military board games and simulations all through childhood. Not all that much aviation related though. I was always looking at and interested in planes, tanks, battlefields, guns, cannons, warships etc., but you actually see planes fairly often. Not so much tanks and battleships.

I got a ride in a Beaver (I think) during a fly in fishing trip when I was a teenager. I got to sit in the front seat. I could not figure out the "lean" and "rich" markings by the red lever. I had to ask my dad about that later. That flight was really cool.

I took a discovery flight in 85, and couple years later became friends with a guy at work who had just finished his CFI. I took a lesson with him in 87, and then some ground school. A year later we went and did some aerobatics. Another year went by and he joined a flying club at Fleming field, South St. Paul. The club is still around.

That was probably when the correct fuel/air mixture met the spark for me. The club had two nice planes, a Warrior and an Archer. The wet rates were around $30 and $35 an hour, and Mike charged me $15 an hour, I think. Much less "fuel" required then for a flight school.

I went through my private, instrument, and commercial with those planes, as well as with some planes at the Wings flight school in St. Paul. I had three really good instructors. I took a voluntary layoff to pursue aviation as a career. But, I eventually ran out of money, my instructors got hired by the regionals, my motivation waned and I took another engineering job.

I would say that we all recognize the spark, whether it is something kids are born with or acquire. The fuel in my analogy is money. No money = no ignition, no matter how strong the spark. The air is a catch all for time, family circumstance, access to a plane and airport etc. You have to have all three or you are not going to learn to fly, or continue to fly.

Unfortunately, the "real" standard of living has declined in the US since the 80s, and will likely continue to decline. The decline in the pilot population just mirrors that trend. That isn't to say we shouldn't give rides, talk about the joys and virtues of aviation, and promote it whenever we can, but you can't fix the pilot population problem without a vast change in the economic situation.
 
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No family aviation history... but I liked planes from as early as I can remember.

My mother just found this old negative (c. 1954) recently...:)

me-002.jpg


I don't remember the model, but mum said I always has one around.
 
Spark ignited "no so young"

I am probably in the minority. My "spark" ignited a the spry young age of THIRTY-ONE!

This gives me a somewhat different perspective. It wad not a dad or uncle or old sibling. It wasn't hanging out at the airport or constantly staring up into the sky.

It started with a challenge. That got me thru my PPL and my instrument rating. But still no spark.

For me, tthe electrodes hit the gasoline which a flight in a Champ with a WWII bomber pilot flying furrow lines.

Moral of the story? The "spark" is different for different people. Each young person will be different.

I have an example from a mentoring experience. Many years ago, a friend had a son who was likely going to drop out of high school. I was asked to talk with him since I wa in computers and the kid had shown some interest. He came to my office an I sat him in my office chair and walked up to my whiteboard. I started writing out matrix and vector mathematics. Its nothing more than some simple multiplication and addition (but done over and over and over) definitely not rocket sciece. Obviously, the kid started to tune out almost immediately. Then, I showed him an animation I was working on. Obviously, he found that to be "cool". Then I showed him how the math made the animation. SPARK. IGNITION.
 
lake bemidji

{This is not strictly RV Related, and I was pretty hesitant to post it until encouraged by DR. We've had a few very busy threads this week that were fairly broad on Experimental aviation, and they got me thinking....This is vital to the future of what we do!}

A common thread among aviators today is ?why aren?t there more kids getting involved in aviation? When this question gets discussed, it often comes down to (1) they can?t afford it or (2) They simply lack the interest. As difficult as it might sound, number 1 can be fixed if we want to fix it ? by giving away free rides and free opportunities to let interested kids hang around the airport and help us build airplanes for instance. But what if they simply aren?t interested? Why aren?t they? I?m sure that we all think something is wrong with a kid that doesn?t like airplanes?right? Maybe we aren?t asking the right questioon to solve the problem (because you can?t solve a problem unless you really understand it). The real question we need to answer first is, ?Well what got YOU hooked?!?

I can tell you that my mother tells everyone that the first word I said was ?airpoo? as I looked up in the sky and pointed at a passing airplane. I can?t ever remember a time when I wasn?t fascinated by anything that flew. I don?t know why ? I seem to have been born with the interest. But I know that some of the things that kept me interested was seeing Whirlybirds and Sky King on TV. I built models that I bought with my small allowance. I was excited anytime I could get near an airplane- taking Dad to the local airport to catch a commercial flight, watching the floatplanes at the local dock that gave rides over Lake Bemidji. Most of the books I checked out from the library were about airplanes and flying ? big books on WW II aircraft and the air war, stories of WW I fighters. I had Charles Lindbergh?s book on my bookshelf early on. My father wasn?t a pilot, but his job as an educator put him on a NASA mailing list where he received big thick reports (full of color pictures) of every manned space mission ? and they came straight to me!

I flew U-control models because I couldn?t afford R/C, then got the opportunity to work on real airplanes in my early teens due to the kindness of an FBO and some of his leaseback pilots. But that wasn?t what got me interested ? it KEPT me interested. I was interested because of some sort of spark set very early on. And it didn?t hurt that flying was seen as unique ? it set me apart, made me special (because ALL aviators were special!), and since I wasn?t very good at sports, it gave me a niche. And?it didn?t hurt that I could read at a level well above my grade to understand those books on flying earlier than most. {Did anyone else ever have a copy of ?Ann Can Fly!? in their house?}

So what got YOU interested? And how can you use that information to help get today?s kids interested? All the Young Eagle?s rides in the world won?t get them hooked if they aren?t interested ? oh, they?ll take the ride?then go do something else. They need to get that spark first. How do we ignite it?

Paul

Paul:
Would that be the lake in Minnesota? That would be way too small a world.

My first airplane ride was on a floatplane off a lake near Bemidji,MN. I was about 5. It must have been in 1964 or so. I was hooked for life. I watched every plane I heard fly over till out of sight. Later I did the usual wire line models, remote control, 1/4 scale ,till I finally got my license and just recently purchased the tail kit for my RV7.
 
Lots of great responses here. Sounds like most of us are still a bit mystified as to where the spark comes from, or how to get it. We're better at thinking of ideas about fanning it into a flame. I am inclined to think that (at least in my case), the temporal proximity to WW II, and the veterans that were around to tell about it, plus the fact that aviation was advancing rapidly at the time made it exciting. Yes, there are a tons more things that can catch a kid's interest today (or an adult's interest - I don't want to ignore the late bloomers!), but even back in my youth, that was true - sports, cars, cowboys, etc.....those of us pursuing aviation were still a minority. SO it is still a bit of a mystery, but perhaps with enough stories, we can come up with some common threads. It's fun to speculate that we were "born with it", and I sorta even like to think that is/was true....but I doubt that the human genome has advanced enough to have a "bit" set for aviation.... ;)

Paul:
Would that be the lake in Minnesota? That would be way too small a world.

My first airplane ride was on a floatplane off a lake near Bemidji,MN. I was about 5. It must have been in 1964 or so. I was hooked for life. I watched every plane I heard fly over till out of sight. Later I did the usual wire line models, remote control, 1/4 scale ,till I finally got my license and just recently purchased the tail kit for my RV7.

Yes - don't know of another Lake Bemidji! Paul Bunyan, Babe the Blue Ox, and seaplanes at the dock.....

I was born there, my parents taught at the High School in the 50's and early 60's. The pilot (when I got my ride) was a former math student of my Dad's.

Paul
 
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My mother was a flight attendent for TWA back in the early 50's and the family always
used that as reason for my passion for aviation. I read everything I could at an early
age about airplanes, especially WW II.
My father also shared that interest and we built many plastic airplanes
together. I remember him taking my younger brother and I to the original
Planes of Fame museum at Ontario Airport which was largely just a pile
of relics, not the flying museum it is today. One of my high school instructors
was a WW II Spitfire pilot and he took me down to the local airport and bought
me a demo flight in a Cherokee 140. I was 15. As soon as I got my drivers license, I
was back at that airport applying for a job at the Cessna
dealer as a line boy. I worked there on and off for 12 years until taking a job
with one of my charter accounts outside of aviation.

Now, I have two boys who grew up in our RV and were bombarded with airshows and
anything with wings. And even though they still enjoy going
with Dad (especially to Oshkosh) neither has caught the bug. Go figure.
 
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Me & Planes

Go back to Toledo Ohio where I was born & spent my 1st 7 years,
my Dad worked for Champion Spark Plug all during the War as a shop foreman in the Aviation division.
After we moved to Florida in 1947 I became interested building balsa models, the first?, a 7AC Champ. Then a F4UCorsair followed, then a 6Ft Condor Glider just before I left for the Navy as an Aviation Electronics Striker in 1958. Thats when I served aboard USS RANDOLPH, witnessed John Glenn & Gus Grissom make their historic flights and really connected with aviation first hand on the ship's Aircraft Crew as the AT. Learned how to tear down a Pratt Radial, change hydraulic lines, a little about the electrical systems and fueling with 115/145...a lot.
After the service I took about a 25 year hiatus from aviation raising a family and earning my degree.
Than at 46 an old friend, who is now the recipient of the Wright Brothers Award, casually asked me if I was ever interested in learning to fly.
Well that started a whole new ballgame for me.
I now have approaching 2400 hours in everything from a J-3 to a Senaca II. Helped restore a 7AC Champ for my old EAA chapter 282
down in Clearwater, and had a blast.
A commercial rating from my aerial photography/real estate days, An off field emergency landing in a PA28-260, and at age 67 decided I should build an RV-7.
So I started TW training in the J-3 and am finishing my Transition training in an RV-6 all at age 71.
I just wonder how much longer I have on this earth, since I'm having such an interesting life.:cool:
 
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A family connection

Like many I was influenced by Dad, mind you it was at an early age because he died when I was 10. He had worked as a mechanic for ANA (Australian National Airways) and had done his apprentiship working for Charles Kingsford Smith. So there were always stories. Ill health made him change his job, but there were often old colleagues coming around the house. I also remember hat he and I would have an evening out. We would buy fish and chips and drive to the main airport, sit in the car on a sizable mound of dirt and watch the aeroplanes take off and land.

Very nice memories.:)

Of course I followed the same path as many on this thread. Plastic and balsa models, then finally getting a licence to fly the real things. As a teacher I try to pass things on. I run an Aviation course for senior high school students that allow them to get the 1st theory exams out of the way. It has been quite successful too. However I can't take them flying because the schools insurance company would have apoplexy!

Cheers

Jim
 
Exposure

I have a simple test for picking out the kids with the "Bug" or "airplane gene". When a bunch of kids are on a playground or on a ballfield or at the beach (any gathering) take notice at who looks up when ANY motorized flying craft flies over. That was my cue. I remember a litlle league game when I was 8 or 9 years old. I was playing right field and an airplane of some kind flew overhead just before the bat met the ball. I was still looking at the plane when the ball entered my lower field of vision and exited my upper field of vision. Woops!!! When the game was over my dad asked me what the heck was I doing out there? When I told him I was loooking at an airplane I know he thought I was crazy. I was. Still am. Airplane crazy!
 
I have a simple test for picking out the kids with the "Bug" or "airplane gene". When a bunch of kids are on a playground or on a ballfield or at the beach (any gathering) take notice at who looks up when ANY motorized flying craft flies over. That was my cue. I remember a litlle league game when I was 8 or 9 years old. I was playing right field and an airplane of some kind flew overhead just before the bat met the ball. I was still looking at the plane when the ball entered my lower field of vision and exited my upper field of vision. Woops!!! When the game was over my dad asked me what the heck was I doing out there? When I told him I was loooking at an airplane I know he thought I was crazy. I was. Still am. Airplane crazy!

Best post in the whole thread. It is not about seeing how many kids YE can fly, it should be about mentoring kids that want to fly.

No offense to anyone who posted, but read the above post carefully. There is your answer. It is not about what sparked it in you, we know you are crazy about AC or you would not be here. It is about how to "light the spark" in the next generation.

Flying 75 kids on a Sat afternoon is not the way to do it, IMHO. Find out which ones of the 75 want to learn how a plane flies and you have the start of a group of kids that wants to learn. Use the ride as a reward for learning. Make them want to fly. It is not a carnival ride at Worlds of Fun. How many kids do you know that aspire to be a Worlds Of Fun ride operator?

What I propose is having kids attend a "ground school" class about flying. Find out which kids are interested first, then take them flying. Make it fun with paper airplanes, short videos, ect. to get their attention, to lite the spark. Then go to the hangar that weekend and talk about the airplane for an hour or two, then fly, then talk about the plane, that landing, how a plane flies, drag, turns, show them what just happened.

It is not about seeing how many kids YE can fly, it should be about mentoring kids that want to fly.

JMHO
 
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No offense to anyone who posted, but read the above post carefully. There is your answer. It is not about what sparked it in you, we know you are crazy about AC or you would not be here. It is about how to "light the spark" in the next generation.

Flying 75 kids on a Sat afternoon is not the way to do it, IMHO. Find out which ones of the 75 want to learn how a plane flies .....

JMHO

No offense taken and I you don't take offense if I disagree that this it "the" answer. It is a great point about how to identify an interest but reading the other posts I can't help but conclude it is by no means the only way to generate interest. I also think finding "the answer" almost always closes the mind to other possibilities.

Another element in this thread that bears acting on is how important fathers are in generating interest in aviation with their kids. That thread is consistent and I expect it goes well beyond just identifying the kids with a natural interest in aviation - it actually puts a spark there that wouldn't have otherwise been there.

Expanding on the previous post, I'd say pay attention to anyone, young or old who shows consistent curiosity about flying. In my past line of work I trained a lot of people and the ones who were bored never did will or stayed long. The ones who were curious became the future leaders.
 
Small world

Yes - don't know of another Lake Bemidji! Paul Bunyan, Babe the Blue Ox, and seaplanes at the dock.....

I was born there, my parents taught at the High School in the 50's and early 60's. The pilot (when I got my ride) was a former math student of my Dad's.

Paul

WOW! Very small world. I was too young to remember details, but it was in the early 60s. My dad was born in Bemidji, 1914. His brother lived in Minnesota. He showed me where they grew up in Bemidji. He has long since passed but all that he was is with me every single day. I would love to meet you some day.

Back to the thread. I truly believe aviation is something we are born to love. I see it in my grandson and encourage him, but the other five grand kids are not interested. After 30 years working for Austin ISD, I see the same. Lots of kids show interest. We need to get into the education community not make them come to us at airports. Encourage it in the classroom and the kids will get their parents to bring them out. Just my $.02
 
Flying 75 kids on a Sat afternoon is not the way to do it, IMHO. Find out which ones of the 75 want to learn how a plane flies and you have the start of a group of kids that wants to learn. Use the ride as a reward for learning. Make them want to fly. It is not a carnival ride at Worlds of Fun. How many kids do you know that aspire to be a Worlds Of Fun ride operator?

What I propose is having kids attend a "ground school" class about flying. Find out which kids are interested first, then take them flying. Make it fun with paper airplanes, short videos, ect. to get their attention, to lite the spark. Then go to the hangar that weekend and talk about the airplane for an hour or two, then fly, then talk about the plane, that landing, how a plane flies, drag, turns, show them what just happened.

It is not about seeing how many kids YE can fly, it should be about mentoring kids that want to fly.

JMHO

My opinion; you have it right.

Tony
 
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