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Are/were your parents GA flyers?

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Did you experience GA with family in your childhood? How did it affect you and, in particular, your subsequent involvement with gA?

As I child, other than RC helo flying, I only went as as far as getting permission from dad to clean airplane bellies at the local aeroclub at 9YO getting the occasional ride in exchange…but that surely served to foster what ended up becoming a professional life in aviation (mostly engineering) and also deep involvement in GA since. PPL since 20 years ago. Airplane ownership only in the last 17 years. IR for the last 15 years.

Antonio
LESB, Spain

I grew up with many UK Navy and Air Force aircraft overflying our house, but with a very anti-aviation widowed mother and religious group. Neither parent had ever flown.
I left home at 17 years and 6 months and first got involved in flying at age 17:years and 8 months,
( A German bomb had ended up in our garden 39 days before I was born, but did not explode. That and local crashes affected family attitude.)

Maoraigh
EGPE, United Kingdom

Yes, I grew up in my dad’s Skylark and I like to think I became a pretty good autopilot at 7 years old. :)
It affected my life in the sense that I have always been close to GA, started flying as soon as I could somewhat afford it. It is a really nice hobby to have together with my father. Now, what was funny growing up were situations when I met people from say Sweden and they look totally puzzled when they learn I’ve been to Visingsö (Grass field on an Island of lake Vättern) but not to Stockholm.

At school other kids might think the parents are extremely rich, because most only know private jets. So it was sometimes a fight to insist that GA flying is not a high-society thing. Interestingly, yes flying is a rather expensive hobby, but the traveling is usually pretty humble. So for me as a kid I think it taught me good things. For example that sometimes you end up in the middle of nowhere due to whatever life throws at you (in GA probably bad weather) and then you just make the best of it. For example when you look forward to a night in a nice hotel but end up in a tent or in a run-down hostel. I like to think that growing up in GA is awesome, but I can only speak for myself. My sisters liked the traveling too but are not as close to flying as I am.

Last Edited by ArcticChiller at 18 May 20:25

My mother got her PPL in a PA-11 and the family had a C-140A. My father also got a PPL, and in due course also an MEP (Apache). He was happiest in an early 172A. I flew a fair bit with him, mainly in the C140, he would point to a landmark and ask me to maintain straight and level, so my earliest flying was as a single axis autopilot (the ALT hold function not quite operative).

I know the MEP caused fiscal stress which left me with a bias towards simple, easy to maintain, SEP. My last flight with my father was in a rented Warrior, and probably a factor for my current type.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

My dad has been a private pilot (airplane) for nearly 50 years now. He went into helicopters before retirement and is now an FI (H) too.
The saturdays at the airfield and reading the travel articles in Info Pilote (to Alaska, North Cape, Morocco) gave me the bug
I should admit he paid for 90% of my PPL.

My brother is bug-free though.

LFOU, France

My dad was a real cheapskate, for entertainment we would go to the airport just to watch the planes, he didn’t have the money at that time to fly. Never got over it Later in life I taught him to fly, I think we did about 150 hours or so together, quite a few of them upside down.
Probably the best things we did together.

Ted
United Kingdom

No direct family background in aviation (but my grandpa flew a Bf109 during the war).

I started my passion as the typical 12 yr. “Hangaround” at the local glider club and pestered my parents long enough to py the membership fee – paid for my flights there by mowing the lawn, etc.

Germany

My parents didn’t fly (in communism, they spent years saving up for a B&W TV) but my mum got a flight with me c. 1965. I didn’t get into it until many years later.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Caught the bug from my uncle who flew helicopters & hercules in his service, my first ride at age of 6 year old was 15min in military Bell 205 on families & friends open days, I cried whole day and hate it to death, my second ride maybe at 10 years old, was in some aeroclub C152, first love from the first touch , then I went gliding, military flying and local aeroclub flying for years, only in recent years where I discovered that one can travel UK to Greece in TB20 after reading one of Peter trips reports, for some reasons, I had the impression one needs a CJ4+ to fly that, but never mind !

Parents never flew, never had the money to fly and never liked to fly when offered…
The two grand parents enjoyed every bit of it, something to do with age !

Last Edited by Ibra at 19 May 10:04
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

For me, zero exposure to GA before the PPL at 20.

English grandparents were RAF in WW2, and I was a plane-obsessed kid, reading Biggles books and the occasional birthday trip to Duxford or Middle Wallop air museums. I used to like going to market, as the road passed the aéro-club and occasionally there would be a plane taking off or landing, which was very very exciting Years later, when I learnt to fly there, the club welcomed me with open arms.

Age 15 I joined a gliding club in the UK, but didn’t enjoy it. The people were slightly odd, and I’d spend a 6-8 hour day waiting for an instructional flight which could be as short as one circuit (or never happen).

I would have done anything to fly as a child, but talking to other pilots they generally say their children aren’t really interested. This is apparent in the aéro-club membership list, where only 10% of the 60 pilots have the same surname: 1 husband and wife, 1 father and son, 1 brother and sister. Two more have children flying for Air France.

I’m surprised it’s so low, as French schools offer extra-curricular aviation classes in partnership with the local club (the brevet d’initiation aéronautique) and for under 21s there are grants from the FFA and half price membership. Maybe the age profile of GA pilots means most learn to fly when their children are already grown up?

EGHO-LFQF-KCLW, United Kingdom
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