What is your first aviation memory?

[Rauhbatz]

Sitting in my backyard in Columbus Ohio as a tyke looking up at North American Vigilantes zooming over my house....

[RandolphB]

Both sets of my grandparents lived across the street from Herndon Field in Orlando. In the 60's it was very active, with a seaplane base on the lake at the east end of the property. I used to sit next to the road and watch the planes come and go, A & P's working on them at the hangars along the field. As I got older I was able to venture over to the fence and watch from there. We attended airshows in Kissimmee, but the first outstanding event at Herndon was a group of Warbird owners (not a term back then..) had a fly-in and my father saw it and took me over to check out the 8 or 10 Mustangs there. I remember one of the Mustang owners telling me the plane was very expensive, it had cost him almost $5000.00. Had to be late 60's, early 70's. Me and another kid were behind two of the planes as they were warming up, and I leaned back into the propwash with my full weight and didn't fall over. So did the other kid....until the pilots noticed us and cut the throttles at the same time, sending us for a tumble. They later got out and laughed with us over it.

But my parents told me that as soon as I could walk, if an airplane flew over, they would find me in the front yard looking up at it....until they started locking the doors to keep me inside. I remember the F-4's from McCoy for many years back then too.....

[phil65]

"Pappy's Lambs" .....

[Speedy]

Good question...and some really good answers. Thanks all.

I have flashes of things that *may* have been earlier (because Hacker and I were raised in the Navion) but my first firm memory is of the Blue Angels flying the Phantoms at Abbottsford in 1970. My dad knew Paul Marlowe, who was filming Threshold at that show.

In his later years my grandfather recalled that even at my age (I wasn't yet four) I was smitten with the Blues in the Phantoms, and I can trace that moment as my inspiration for becoming a Naval Aviator. He had a picture of me standing at the fenceline with the Phantoms lined up in the background and on the back he had written "Bradley and his precious Blue Angels".

[K5DH]

Most of my early aviation memories occurred when we were living in Beuchel, KY, a suburb of Louisville (and home to a promising young boxer by the name of Cassius Clay). We lived there from 1963 through late 1966.

One memory was flying from Louisville to New York City with my parents to see the 1964 World's Fair. We traveled on an American Airlines jetliner, most likely a Boeing 720. I was five years old. Big doings, my friend! The return trip was on a TWA Connie!

Another was my Dad taking me to an open house at the Kentucky Air Guard base. They were flying RB-57s at that time. They had a row of probably 8 or so jets lined up on the ramp, and they started them all up simultaneously using those noisy, smoky black powder cartridge starters. What a cool memory!

Yet another was a co-worker of my Dad taking him and me up for a ride in his Piper Tri-Pacer... my first small plane flight!

[Neal Nurmi]

I think I always liked airplanes. In first grade (about 1953 or so) I can clearly remember several times running out of the classroom to see a jet flying over -- any jet would pretty much empty the school. The next year we moved out into the country -- right under the approach path to the local airport. I was mesmerized by the North Central Airlines DC-3s droning over. By the mid 1950s the USAF was very actively practicing low level bombing missions, so several times a week we'd have B-47s flying over the farm -- often low enough to make out markings on the aircraft. Then they lost two of them within 30 miles of my house, and that kind of ended that. The local airport was a sight to see during the lengthy search for the first B-47 to disappear. I remember C-47s, Beavers, an Otter, and a couple of H-43 helicopters. My folks got real tired of me insisting that we drive over to the airport to see what was going on...

[kalamazookid]

My Dad started taking me to the Kalamazoo Air Zoo before I could walk. When I was toddler, I referred to the museum as "Airplanes Inside-Outside," the P-40 was the "one got teeth on it," and the B-25 was the "eagle airplane" because of the nose art. Spent a lot of great fall and winter Saturdays there taking restoration tours, looking at planes, riding the old Corsair flight simulator, oogling over the model planes in the display cases and sitting in planes during the open cockpit days every February.

The Kalamazoo Airshows are among my earliest memories, too. Watching the Grumman Cat Flight was always special, plus getting to look at rows and rows of warbirds, Tomcats, Hornets, A-10s, Skyhawks and Prowlers, waiting in line to go up on the flight deck of the C-5, going through C-130s and KC-135s... just a ton of fun.

[CoastieJohn]

Geez....I had to sit here and think about what my first comprehension of flying things were. I have three things that came to mind as I recall from my youth in the 1960's. I grew up in South Daytona, FL. First would be the Saturn/Apollo rockets taking off from KSC. Those were big events watching them take off, the flame, the smoke trail and hearing the long-lasting rumbles a few minutes later. Second would be the old biplanes carrying advertising banners on the beach side. Listening to the radials strain and the banners flapping in the breeze. If it was breezy it seemed like the biplane would just hang in the air with little forward airspeed. I remember one yellow one we would see often. Third would be the old helo coming from Harry Doan's yard on Big Tree Rd. We lived about a mile or so away and you could hear that thing coming from a long ways off. All of the kids would run out to the street and look up to catch a glimpse of it. The pop-pop-pop-pop-pop noise was the first clue the whirlybird was coming by. Whenever we drove by his place I would look to see what was parked in his "yard". Those are the only aviation related things I can think of that left an impression on my youthful mind back then.

[mustangdriver]

My first aviation memory is taking my grandparents to the airport in Pittsburgh. I can remember coming up University Hill and seeing the big Pan Am 747 vertical by the road. My first warbird memory is my Grandfather taking me through the B-17 "Texas Raiders" at the local airshow.

[WacoOne]

This would have been late 30s, my dad was a pilot and owner of a Waco 10. We were at an airport and my dad picked me up and swung me into the back seat of a red biplane where upon I started screaming my head off. Needless to say I didn't stay in there very long. Certainly wouldn't cry today, though (except maybe from happiness.).

[CoastieJohn]

This would have been late 30s, my dad was a pilot and owner of a Waco 10. We were at an airport and my dad picked me up and swung me into the back seat of a red biplane where upon I started screaming my head off. Needless to say I didn't stay in there very long. Certainly wouldn't cry today, though (except maybe from happiness.).

Wow! Late 1930's. I salute you sir.

[dirtysidedown430]

January 1969 Vietnam was 19 at the time

[Nathan]

Just watched a lot of war movies as a kid with my dad. My dad liked planes but wasn't like an expert in anything. Other then he told me he knows that dozens of warbirds were buried in the southwest after ww2. That and he used to take me every year to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Pa airshows. They had just about everything at those shows. Taxiways full of multiples of every aircraft in the military inventory. Got a love for big airplanes because the C-5 in the three tone camo would be at the show every year.

I just enjoyed seeing airplanes fly at the airshows. The noise, the look, the feel, just was mesmerizing as a kid.

[Woodsy Airfield]

Probably in the first or second grade during late 1940's-early 50's, I observed a flight of B-17's flying over the city of Lorain Ohio heading northwest bound. As my memory serves me, I visualize them maybe at 5000 feet. I often wondered if they may have been part of the movie Twelve O'Clock High (made in 1949) returning to - maybe Selfridge - Absolutely no proof of this - since B-17's in a large formation would be unusual at that time. The second vivid memory is of a flight of 3 B-36's flying over Lorain in a circular pattern for 15 minutes or so and the following year 2 B-36's circled. In both cases they were probably holding for their turn to fly over to Cleveland during their annual airshow. Will never forget these - aviation shot in the arm - events.

[Scott Rose]

These are all wonderful stories and it is interesting to see the differences and the similarities we share in coming to our love of aircraft. Thanks to everyone for sharing your memories with us.