....I think all the retired Mil/Airline guys are out flying or sitting in their lawn chairs outside their hangars at their airpark homes instead of surfing the forums!
Okay Paul, here's one... No I wasn't flying today and I'm afraid there's no airpark home...Don't I wish, though!!
I was instead, out in my backyard doing a combination of working on a large pergola at the end of my pool, and ...closing the pool also, for the winter. Sometimes I am my own worst enemy when it comes to clumsyness. In trying to carefully wheel ( in one of those "Agri-Fab" trailers ) the large and heavy pool cover around to the other end of the pool, I misstepped off into the pool in the deep end, followed by the trailer and pool cover still in it's bag. My wife came running quick when she heard me howl. What she saw was me dripping wet sitting on the side of the pool ( didn't stay in too long as the water temp was around 63 degrees!), and the trailer and the pool cover ( in it's bag) ....at the bottom of the pool... When she figured out that I wasn't hurt...just embarrassed, she began to howl! And howl she did for 15 minutes... we eventually got all the stuff out of the pool and got it covered.
I think I would've rather been working on the RV..... but I digress..
My first PIC time was several hundred hours in my homemade wooden airplane, made from construction site scraps. The wings were a couple of 2x6s and I spent hours in this contraption imagining all sorts of cool trips. The year was 1962 and I was 9 years old. My exposure to aviation in my early days consisted of family trips to the local airport simply to watch airplanes. Well, that stuff made quite an impression as I was totally bitten by the bug.
When I was an older teenager, I finally got a job at the local airport working for an FBO washing/waxing airplanes and cutting grass around them. When I got senior, I moved up to line service and started fueling them. One thing led to another and next I knew, I was taking flying lessons....in
real airplanes! Private Pilot's License came along in 1972, along with part ownership in my first taildragger...a Corbin Baby Ace! PIC time was beginning to accumulate in C-150s, 172s, and of course the Baby Ace.
Through the 70's, I went to college in Daytona Beach, FL, added commercial, instrument and muti-engine ratings. PIC time now flying Piper singles, Mooneys, and now was flying banners along the beach for a couple of seasons racking up a lot of time in PA-12 Super Cruisers ( taildragger). After college, an assortment of small flying jobs trying just to stay alive and not get violated at these outfits. Wound up in Houston, living near the Johnson Space Center flying DHC-6s (Twin Otters) and Shorts 3-30s for the next five years. Accumulated over 3,000 hours in the Twin Otter and around 1,000 hours in the boxy looking Shorts. With my ATP and fresh Flight Engineer written test results in hand, I started chasing airline jobs vigorously. After being turned down at Eastern (gone!), Piedmont (not really gone but in a world of hurt with the USAir merger), People's Express (remember them??) and Northwest, I finally got hired by United just after a big pilot strike in '85 and just in front of a big hiring boom.
22 years later with UAL has logged me around 23,000 hours total in everything from B-727s, 737s, 757s, 767s, and Airbus A-320s.
I rediscovered my roots in general aviation after going through a divorce back in 1989. I bought a Citabria and
FINALLY made it to Oshkosh, and have been active in this passion of EAA and AOPA and RVing ever since!
I've been fortunate to develop such lasting friendships with fellow aviator buds and have had opportunities to get checked out in a Stearman and a T-6 Texan.
I consider myself one of the luckiest guys on the planet to have always known I wanted to fly, and have been able to pursue flying as a career. All this time, I've never been furloughed and have had a ball flying and now building...
I'm 54 years old and I still act like and feel like a 5 year old when it comes to things with wings! My wife just rolls her eyes. ...I just gotta be careful around the pool is all...