When did you first become interested in Warbirds?

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There's one Serbian saying: "U laži su kratke noge!" meaning something like "You won't get far by lying!"
(Not word to word translation but that's the meaning.)

Anyway to return to topic... I'm not sure I could pinpoint one moment or event that made me interested in warbirds. I was always interested in history and interest in WW2 and aircrafts (primarily from WW2 period and later to aircrafts in general) came gradually over the years. Growing up near a military air base (Batajnica Air Base is 10 km away from my town), my father serving in Air Force as assistant avio mechanics on Mi-8 helicopters, my grandfather's stories about the time of occupation in WW2 - it's all pieces of the puzzle I guess. Then ,when I was around 5 years old there was an Airshow at Batajnica, where they allowed children to take a close look to the aircrafts and I was seated to the cockpit of MiG-21. (Maybe that was a turning point for me, but I can't be sure because of my young age at the time).

One thing I can say for sure - over the years my interest in aviation has only increased and now I found this forum as another source of fascinating info on the subject...

Edit: I never flown in a WW2 Warbird and, actually, apart from the static examples in a museum I never even saw warbird in flight. (I mean in live anyway.) But this doesn't mean I never will.
 
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I haven't posted in this thread yet so I will now, and hope that Airboi takes the hint.

I have never flown in a Warbird, unless the Auster my dad took me up in (as a paying passenger, not a pilot) when I was 8 in 1973 was Army Surplus.

That year coincided with me being bought, out of the blue and at the same time, a Revell Me 262, Matchbox Spitfire IX and Matchbox Boeing P-12E, all 1/72 scale. There and then a flame was lit which has never gone out.
 
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Catch22 said:
There's no reason to BS this stuff on this site. 3/4 of us haven't had the experiences of flying in a warbird or something similar (myself included), but nobody cares.
Click to expand...

I flew in a L-16 once, our Civil Air Patrol unit had it. Does that count as a warbird? I was given the controls for a few minutes. It was a sweet flying little bird.
 
Been interested in Warbirds since I was knee high to a grasshopper. My dad was always building models in the basement and I just followed what my dad did. So I guess I have always had an interest. Some of my most memorable air show moments involve warbirds. As far as flying one, have never had the chance. The closet I have come is flying in the back seat of a F-16. (Incentive flight DCANG) Got about 20 minutes or so of stick time, pulled the 9G turn and pilot even did a little ACM with a F-15 that was giving a ride like mine. He hunted us and then we hunted him. Even though it was an hour it seemed to fly by. No pun intended.

When I was finishing up college I worked in a service(gas) station. The older guys had all these great stories about what they did and it seemed so cool. I could not think of one story to tell. Well, years later I can tell you I have stories that are much better then some of the ones they told. Some of them even involve my time at the service station. Don't worry, you're stories will come. You have to live you life to get them and whether you are 14 or 18 or even 20 chances are you haven't had the experience to have good stories. Be patient and they will come. You won't even realize it until one day your telling one and it dawns on you. In the meantime just enjoy the stories others tell.
 
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Well said...
 
Hey all, new to the forum, so I guess I'll start with this thread. I was 7 yrs old when pops took me to the local airshow. Prior to this day, the extent of my aviation knowledge was that those big slow planes were used to travel to far away places. Just as we arrived, I heard a deafening noise overhead. I stuck my head out the window and looked up in time to see an F-16 in a high speed, low pass. I was elated to say the least because it was the first time I had seen such a thing. I guess that was the moment I got bitten by the aviation bug. I knew right then what I wanted to be when I grow up, and for the next two decades I spent my time reading, learning, breathing everything aviation, flying, and military aircraft. Somewhere during that time, I developed an interest in WWII, and naturally, I was drawn to the air war aspect of it. There's just something about the history of WWII aviation that mesmerizes me. I love learning about the battles, personal air combat accounts, the wide variety of aircraft designs from different nations, the fighter and bomber groups involved, and the personalities of the men and women in them who fought for their country. It was the last time in a massive scale that groups were allowed to paint their aircraft with distinctive paint schemes, and the last time pilots were allowed to personalize their own bird with colorful artwork, which I always thought was one of things that defined the combat pilots of that era.
 
I can't exactly pinpoint the exact time that I became interested in warbirds, but I must've been around 8-12 years old, or something like that.
That's when I got my very first modelling kit - I can't remember the exact model, but it had a strange kinda double-tail compared with the other model kits that mom let me choose from at the toy store, and I clearly remember the swastika on the side of the tail, so it must've been a german WW2-one.
Anyway, I think my next model was a Supermarine Spitfire, and from then on I was hooked.
I went to a model building class with my then best buddy in 8. or 9th grade, and I've been building plane models now and then ever since.
I've been into the WW2 warbirds since that first plane, and right now I'm digging under my bed to find the book that my best buddy gave me, a very in-depth, thorough book about the various Spitfire models.
Also won an online auction (QXL - the danish equivalent of eBay, and just as "dangerous" to your wallet... )) recently, and got me a book about the various british planes of WW2. Yay! )
Am also on the lookout at the local flea markets, as you can get used english-language books fairly cheaply those places - many danish ppl won't bother reading english-language books, since it's easier for them to read danish books, so used books are sold at a very reasonable price. My luck.

And yes, I know that it's an unusual hobby for a woman, but then again: I've never really been into the cooking/cleaning/housewife-thing, as I think that meddling with bikes, planes, fishing, photography and other such things are a helluva lot more fun.
 
Can't believe I didn't post on this one. For me ,6th grade. For some reason I was looking through the encyclopedias my parents had (can't remember what for now, something in the A's though) and came to pics of WW1 planes. i thought , "Those are cool.". Two pages later were pics of a/c in the ETO and the next page was pics of a/c in the PTO. At that point it was "WOW, THOSE ARE REALLY COOL!". Been hooked ever since.
 
For me it was stories my father told me about his service and the planes he encountered. Corsairs, he was at Pelilieu when they were napalming the hills next to the airfield with their landing gear still down. On another island he was a beach sentry one night when a Kate flew down the length of the beach at treetop level, circled and dropped its fish in the surf. He said they probably went back and told their superiors they sank a carrier. I think what got me most interested in WWII aviation was a painting by Tom Lea, called Fighter In The Sky. This painting is set as my wallpaper. It was in a two book volume about WWII written by Winston Churchill, and I used to look at them constantly even before I could read. Much abused they are still at my parents house.

Tom Lea Works
 
My Grandfather was a Korean War veteran and always had an interest in WW2. I got a book about WW2 aircraft when I was eight so I had an interest in the aircraft. Sadly though, he died when I was in second grade...the next year we were going to buy him a ticket to fly in a B-17...
 
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