atpwannabe

I know that this question was asked in the Regional Thread, however since there seems to be alot of "new faces", I thought it would interesting to hear/read everyone's story. Even if you posted yours in the Regional thread, it would be good to hear/read it again. Here's mine:

Remember when television stations used to sign-off at night; well they used to show the military a/c with the narrator reciting the poem "High Flight". As a kid, I equated being a pilot to be able to reach out and touch the face of God. The last shot was always of the fighter pilot with his sunshield down. I thought that was really cool.

• Parents took me out to airport after church on Sundays
• Collected used airline tickets from family members
• Received those battery operated toy commerical airliners as gifts @ Christmas
• Played with the hard red plastic airplanes from Woolworth Stores...
• Watched "World at War" & "Victory At Sea" series on Public television
• Model airplanes; gas powered as well
• Civil Air Patrol
• ERAU/Class of '87
• Former ramp agent for Delta & Comair (PBI & CVG)
• Airport Coordinator/Dunnellon Airport (Marion County, FL)
• Airport Management (PBI)
• Waiting to be issued 1st Class Medical...after that...it's on fellas!!!!
  
  My hope is to fly for a Delta Connection carrier and then eventually Delta or UPS.
  
  
  atp

Cubdriver

As a kid I was obsessed with automobile engineering which found expression in later life as an aircraft systems designer. The transfer to aircraft design was mostly stimulated by high school pals who were aiming for and went into the Air Force to fly Tomcats. I wanted to do that (badly), but wasn't groomed for it and did not meet the vision mins. This was back when lasik was not available (80's). So I went to music school on full scholarship but realized shortly thereafter what a lousy career field music is and went into preaching and charity work. Full circle came when I was offered a scholarship to aeronautical engineering school. Even though I do not fly fulltime now, I am able to be around aircraft all day and I really love it.

Planespotta

One of my uncles is an astronaut with five flights under his belt and another is a pilot, so I've been exposed to aviation since birth. Both uncles loved what they did, and I began to think about how wonderful it would be to fly airplanes myself.
When I was 6, my parents bought me Flight Unlimited and a joystick to go with it. Up until that point, I could only imagine what it was like to fly, but when I actually got to pilot around Pitts, Extras, Decathlons, Sukhois, and Grobs, I instantly fell in love with both airplanes and flight. I spent hours and days and weeks and years aimlessly bumming around the skies of Anchorage, Sedona, Pittsburg, and Southern France with constantly-looping, grainy terrain underneath me but a world of possibility at my fingertips. I was totally hooked, and got some of my friends addicted to the game, too. Flight Unlimited sustained my love of aviation throughout elementary school.
In middle school, I played F/A-18 Korea, watched numerous aviation movies, built wooden airplanes, flew and crashed radio-controlled models, read books about flying, went to museums, always asked to go up front after flying on an airliner, and spent an ungodly amount of time on a.net (and still do).
With high school came FSX, spotting from the piers near Logan (hence the name), and the opportunity to start REAL flight lessons, and the rest is history . I'm now working on cross-country planning, and aim to have my PPL before the start of the summer.

USMCFLYR

I started with that early love of aviation and everything aviation related. My father was career Air Force (electronics MSgt) so I grew up thinking that I would some day fly for the Air Force.

I first started doing something aviation related in high school with the CAP. No flying, but enjoyed marching around the hanger and pretending I was in the military.

Went to college and got into AFROTC (no scholarship). AF flight surgeons told me that I had heartproblems (no), allegeries (no), was color blind (no), and told me I wasn't physically fit enough with two knee surgeries (well - I did have the surgeries no lying) - and eventually was rejected 7 TIMES for a ROTC commissioning. Finally got them to agree to commission me but still no pilot slot; so I went looking elsewhere (and started to worry about my major since I had NO intention of getting a job doing something with Wildlife Ecology Management)

I thought about the Navy (but the recruiter thought I was one of a 1,000 who had just seen TopGun the movie and was very disinterested), the Army never called me back about the WO Flying Program, thought I could never make it through the Marines based on a few people whom I knew that had tried and failed (like my brother-in-law who was a week 7 DOR), and too bad for me - never thought of the Coast Guard.

In the end, I got roped in by the Marines after all and learned that it was as much (if not more) of a mental battle than a physical one to complete the training. During this time I started my aviation studies at Oklahoma State University and graduated with my Comm/ME w/ instrument rating (decided against another semester and the CFI/II/MEI since I didn't think I could instruct at that point anyways)

Waited for my acceptance at OCC and flew checks and jumpers for awhile to make gas money. Went to OCC in Oct '89, commissioned Dec '89, TBS from Mar-Aug '90, stashed with VMFA-112 (USMCR) and got to fly in the F-4S. Started flight school in Pensacola in Jan '91 and have been flying off and on since.

One of the points of this story is NOT TO LET SOMEONE TELL YOU THAT YOU CAN NOT DO IT (whatever the "IT" may be in your case). Way too many people told me that I could not fly - not counting some instructors!

In less than 2 years I'll be leaving the military and looking to continue my flying career outside of the military world - into the world of GS, pax, cargo, corporate, instructing, or fractional or who knows what else - but I won't accept someone telling me that I can't fly anymore.

GOOD LUCK!

USMCFLYR