What is your first aviation memory?

[Scott Rose]

An coworker asked me why I was interested in aviation and my stock answer is that I'm the son of a Navy aircrewman and have been around planes as far back as I can remember. This led me to trying to remember my first aviation memory. After some though I realized that my first aviation memory, or at least the oldest one intact in my addled brain is of when my father came back to Guam from a 6-week deployment to Japan. The family of the whole crew were standing in one of the squadrons hangers waiting for my dad's EP-3 Orion to land. I remember the darkness of the hanger contrasting with the sunny tarmac and the smell of Barney the fruit bat (the squadron mascot kept in a cage in this particular hanger) The plane taxxied in and after what seemed like forever the mobile stairway was moved into place and the crew disembarked the aircraft. I remember the moment I saw my dad in the forward hatch with his flight bag in hand and wearing the green nomex flight suit. The shear joy I felt is very strong in this memory.

Well thats my first aviation memory... What's yours?

[Badman]

My dad and grandfather both worked at Hughes Aircraft at the Culver City airport when I was young. My grandfather was an engineer while my dad did maintenance/repairs on the Hughes 300 helicopters. One day when I was about 5, my dad took me to work with him and I got my first "airplane" ride in a Hughes 300 around Los Angeles. Totally infected me with everything to do with flying - an infection I still have today.

[Robbie Stuart]

Well beside my father being a WWII Fighter Pilot, I can remember watching the airplanes fly over our house, where I grew up.(still live there) Our house is only a couple miles off the west side of Atlanta International Airport. I can remember Connie's, DC-7's, & the old prop jobs coming over on takeoff at night, & you could see the blue flames from the exhaust, all the old jets with black smoke coming out, & the smell of jet fuel. Those old jets would leave a light sheen of jet fuel on everything they flew over on takeoff. It used to be when they would come out of there on a hot day, & heavy, they were so low struggling for altitude, I thought they would take out my dad's CB radio antenna that he had mounted in the top of a tree in our back yard. Loud, people bitch about airport noise now, they don't have a clue about loud, those planes back then were LOUD.
Robbie

[k5083]

Don Plumb's Spitfire TE308 in the pattern over my house. And the pre-noise-abatement jetliners that used to rattle the windows.

August

[Jerry O'Neill]

My father taking me and my brother to Bethany Airport in Connecticut to watch the gliders and planes take-off and land. Probably about 1961-62.

[Xrayist]

Not the earliest, but the one that made a lasting impression, still to this day, was watching Bob Hoover in his Mustang at the 1967 Cleveland Air Races. The 400+ mph low pass down the runway is a sight that EVERYONE should see once in their lifetime. To me it was even better than watching the Reno Air Races.

[Rob W]

Rows upon rows of F-14 Tomcats at Naval Air Station Oceana. Oh the memories.

[planepaul]

My earliest solid airplane memory is when my big brother called out (to anyone who would listen) "Look, the Martin Mars!" It was on long final into Alameda, flying over Moffett Field.
Also, one summer day in 1957 a B-36 came over from Travis and shot GCA landings all day at Moffett. I stood under the shell of a shopping center under construction and watched until my brother found me so that the family could drive out to see one last pass close up. It was in the pattern so long that the afternoon newspaper had a picture of it on the front page while it was still in the pattern.

[JohnB]

As a very young child, perhaps 3 or 4, I recall hearing jet engines running up all night.
We lived at Larson AFB in Moses Lake , Washington where my dad was a pilot.

I later learned that was where the Air Force accepted new B-52s from Boeing.
A short time later my dad too k me when he visited his friend who was the ARS chief at the base.
I can still smell the old hangar smell, a mixture of aircraft, hydraulic fluid, oil and stale coffee. I remember touching the H-19....and I've loved helicopters ever since.

[p51]

I grew up in Tallahassee, Florida and training helicopters from Fort Rucker used to do long-range hops to the airport there. I think that's my first memory, seeing Hueys and Cobras with red panels on the sides. This would have been the very early 70s.

[Scott Rose]

Rows upon rows of F-14 Tomcats at Naval Air Station Oceana. Oh the memories.

My introduction to the Tomcat was at Oceana in the early 80s at the air show. A Tomcat came ripping across the station, wings swept and went verticle at airshow center on full afterburners. Loudest thing I've ever felt.

[Chris Brame]

I grew up about a mile from NAS Glenview in the mid-'60s and saw/heard plenty of planes going in and out of there. In particular, when I was abut five years old, there was a series of war games going on over the Chicago area around '65-'66 that introduced me to the sound of sonic booms. It got so that I recognized the sound of a fast-moving jet quick enough to hit the floor and plug my ears before the boom hit.

[Malo83]

Going to the First airshow at Lemoore Naval Air Station when it was commissioned in 1961, the Blue Angels flew the F-11 Tiger for the show, really made an impression on me, ended up serving 22 yrs in Naval Aviation as a Jet Mech, Scott spent 3 yrs on Guam, 72-75 wrenching on EA-3B's and the EP-3's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf4MvIHChz0

[Scott Rose]

Going to the First airshow at Lemoore Naval Air Station when it was commissioned in 1961, the Blue Angels flew the F-11 Tiger for the show, really made an impression on me, ended up serving 22 yrs in Naval Aviation as a Jet Mech, Scott spent 3 yrs on Guam, 72-75 wrenching on EA-3B's and the EP-3's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf4MvIHChz0

VQ-1 or 2 (I always reverse them, my father was in both)? We were there from 74-76 so you probably worked on some of the aircraft my father flew.

[Kyleb]

My first specific memory is sitting at the East end of the runway at Dobbins AFB in Marietta Georgia to watch the first flight of the C-5A. Google tells me that flight was on June 30, 1968, which means I was approaching 4 years old.