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Am I addicted to aviation?


Guest Reflex

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Guest Chainsaw

A P3??? Jeez with that pic and my old eyes it looked like a C130. Just wait till you get to my age, sometimes a Tiger Month looks like a A380!!!

 

 

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  • 6 months later...
Guest Chainsaw

Am I addicted? Maybe...ahhh...well...yep, sure am.

 

Last night Mrs Chainy was sitting up in bed reading some rubbish. What was Chainy doing? Well I was also sitting up in bed with my trusty netbook computer and PlanePlotter.

 

What would you do, read fiction rubbish, or watch planes????

 

 

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Guest Chainsaw
I was referring to being on TAA. Don't know what you were thinking.

Good answer :redface:

 

:tongue:

 

 

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  • 2 years later...

As a new member of TAA, I have been invited to contribute to this topic.

 

I first became interested in aviation when I was in high school in southern NSW and attended an airshow at our local airport. I took up aeromodelling, and when I looked like leaving school, I applied to join Ansett-ANA as a trainee mechanic. As there were no vacancies at the time. I returned to school for another year. That is as close as I came to working in the industry. On leaving school, I went into the financial services industry, and joined a bank. I finished my working life in superannuation.

 

However, throughout my entire life, I have loved aviation. My family moved around quite a bit, and for a few years we lived right under the approach to runway 27 at Essendon, with DC6's, Viscounts, Electra's, Friendships, and later 727's and DC9's flying over constantly. We were right at the point where the pilots would power up for a missed approach while practicing instrument approaches.

 

Before I had a driver's licence, I would ride my pushbike to the airport fence and stand near the runup bay for rwy27 just to watch the comings and goings, and take photos. When I could scrape the money together I would take a helicopterr ride to the city heliport and go back to the airport by tram because I couldn't afford the return flight.

 

Eventually I saved up and took flying lessons at Civil Flying School Moorabbin, flying Beechcraft B19 Sport training aircraft. The issue date in my Private Pilot Licence - Aeroplanes is 13/11/68. I maintained the licence as long as I could, but putting kids through secondary school forced me to let the licence lapse in 1986. The Type endorsements include: B23, Tourer, PA28, B33/35, PA28 Arrow and Cessna, before the all-encompassing "Single engine aeroplane not exceeding 5700 Kg maximum take-off weight".

 

I continued taking photographs when I could afford film and processing. The advent of digital photography was a blessing, being able to take as many photos as you like, delete the failures and download the good ones to your computer. My first digital camera was an Olympus 3mp 3x zoom point and shoot. I was then given a Samsung 12mp 3x p&s, and with my final tax return, bought a Panasonic Lumix FZ35 12mp, 18x zoom. I use all 3 as the circumstances warrant.

 

I have uploaded photos to more than 10 aviation databases, some no longer operating, with a total of 364 on the most used database. At the time of writing, my third day on TAA, I have 70 uploaded, and will continue to upload whenever my wife lets me get online (what was that 'divorce' reference when defining AIDS?).

 

Would I like to fly again? Absolutely. I'm a bit heavy for ultralights, and I probably wouldn't pass the physical these days (hearing and eyesight aren't what they used to be). My biggest regret is that I didn't get to fly a helicopter.

 

Am I an aviation addict? I guess the answer would have to be YES!

 

Cheers,

 

Peter.

 

 

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