What sparked your passion for flying?

[Dave71K]

From a very young age all I wanted to do was be a fast jet pilot and I still do to this day!

[andy190]

For me it was when I was 7 & my dad out of the blue, brought home a copy of CFS 1 & a joystick. Then a couple of years later we started going to airshows. I'm 13 now & I

[SkyHawk00]

After watching C-130's and 747's make touch and go's and landings over my house, as well as t-15's and several other aircraft, then after I went to aviation challenge, I just had to get a flight sim, always loved the F-18 afterwards

[RaptorF22]

When I was pretty young, probably 6 or 7, I would visit my Grandpa and he would take me back to his computer room and show me fs2004(I think) and let me fly on it a bit; I've been obsessed ever since.
He also gave me my first joystick, a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro, which I'm still using now after the death of my beloved Freedom 2.4.

[Hagar]

In July 1949 when I was six years old my Dad took me to the Daily Express Air Pageant at the old Gatwick Airport. Since then I've been fascinated by anything that flies. He didn't know what he'd started.

I found a little clip of the show. http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist/BHC_RTV/1949/07/28/BGU411160046/?a=1&s=*&v=0

[jetprop]

it was mainly flight sim that started it for me,don't know what one tough,i think it was fs9 or 8 but my dad had it and he flew in it somemtimes,i gave it a go but i gave up because i wasn't able to move the plane forward,then one day i found FSX in the game section of a toy store,could've chosen between the 'deluxe(everything)' version for a tenner more or the normal one,i picked the deluxe.

i started to learn how to fly and since then i wanted to be a pilot,not an airline one tough,private,corporate or comuter,never liked the big jets.

[Fozzer]

I occasionally flew an Auster Aiglet spotter plane whilst in the British Army in 1955 stationed in Germany after the War, but when I was demobbed shortly after, took little further interest in aircraft, until using my Sinclair Spectrum, etc, Computers in 1980 onwards, with its various aeroplane and helicopter games/simulators, I found them fun!
Then with the advent of my home-built "PC" Desktop/Tower Computer, and Windows OS in 1995, I found Flight Unlimited I/II/III followed by Fly!, Pro Pilot/2, Longbow, Gunship, etc, etc,....
...finally by MS FS '98.....then I was really hooked!
They were quickly followed by FS 2000, FS 2002, FS 2004 CFS 2/3, and FSX immediately they were released in England!
For the past 14? years, I have been flying the Sims every single day, exploring the whole world, (mostly California.. ...), for the cost of a few Pennies in the Electric Meter.. ...!
I have found lots of on-line Flight Sim Chums over that period, and learned lots about the World around me, using the Flight Sims, and Maps, and Wikipedia...
...and also learned how to fly Aeroplanes... [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]...including the occasional REAL ONE!

Its lots of fun, and I thoroughly enjoy it, every day*... [smiley=thumbsup.gif]...!

Paul...I have Control... 8-)...!

* What is it like, outside, in the Real world?... .... ...!

[Xpand]

Well, despite flying in FS for 10 years, since I was 8, it was actually an arcade game for PS2 that sparked my interest for flying. The game was Ace Combat 5 that came out in 2004. Before that I flew in FS but it was like, meh... After seeing those military planes, oh man... 
Then of course I piloted RC plane models 'till a year ago when I crashed my Extra 300 because of lack of battery, right when I was aproaching the runway to land, and didn't have the time to rebuild it from the scraps...

[expat]

When I was a very small boy around 5 or so, my mother worked as a secretary for a small local aviation company, the rest is history

Matt

[Steve M]

When I was 5 or 6 yrs my parents sent me off to my grandparents via Pan Am. I was very apprehensive as we walked out on the apron towards a Douglas DC 6. A very nice stewardess met me at the bottom of the steps, took my hand and got me to my seat. She pinned a set of junior pilot wings on my shirt pocket. The captain came out of the cockpit and said hello and chatted with me for a minute.
  That was it, I was hooked from then on!


                  

[FSX_Dude]

Well when I was about 5 years old me and my family went down to Pensacola Naval Museum,I went in and looked at the whole museum and when we got to the part of it with the Blue Angels hanging on the cieling I just fell in love with flying.When I was 13 I took my first flight in a small plane,I was even more in love with flying!
Now I'm 16 and I love flying still!

[hyperpep111]

I used to have little matchbox style planes bought for me when I was 3. I would love playing with them. I still have one f-14 that was one of the first ones I had and removed the wheels for a "better experience".
Now I'm 13 and my love for planes is ever growing.
And I do not like watching movies with planes because they are mostly biased. Especially stealth the part for the f/a-37 vs the su-37 the dogfight made me want to shoot down the talon myself. Especially at the beginning during the 20g turn.
Enjoy weighing 3000lbs

[Jayhawk Jake]

I just liked planes, but this helped: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119595/

The Magic of Flight IMAX.  It was really cool.

As I grew up I realized I was pretty good at math and science, and I really liked airplanes, so I put 2 and 2 together and became an aerospace engineer.

[wifesaysno]

I am what you could call an "airport brat". My parents met working together at KBIV, my dad started flight school when I started preschool, so he took me on many of his lessons, and my mom is a flight coordinator in a private jet flight dept so I would also spend many a day playing around a Dassault Falcon 10, 20, 2000. My dad did flight training at Muskegon County airport, so me and my brother also spent considerable time hanging out around the airport. It got to the point as a little kid I was allowed to wander the airport at will There was a hanger that contained a L-39, Stearman, T-34, and T-28, obviously I spent a LOT of time there! By the way, if you have a chance to see the inside of a tower take it. So to sum it up, I was BORN with avgas in my veins. Aviation is my life.

[ozzy72]

Aged 4 moving to NY from dreary England and going on Laker Airways and managing to blag two trips to the cockpit!
I've still got the "Pilot Badge" given to young guests in the "office". I was hooked!
Then in NY I had my first helicopter flight in a Bell Jet Ranger and I remember being in the front seat (mum in the back with the peasants) and flying between sky scrapers (this has been banned now, sensibly) and loving it 8-)
The final piece of the jigsaw came as an air cadet and going up on my first Air Experience Flight in a Chipmunk and taking control and doing loops and stall turns myself with a senior RAF pilot making certain I didn't cream in. We weren't supposed to do this on the first flight I then spent every weekend I could flying with the cadets. I still have a very special place in my heart for the Chippie 8-)