Great thread, really enjoyed reading about everyone and putting some background info to the internet names.
I'm Rick Charles, 24, graduated from Kennesaw State University last July with a major in Organizational Communication (don't ask exactly what that is, I just needed a degree to fly and I figured that one was somewhat interesting.)
I was born in Atlanta on 11/5/84 and have been living in the same house ever since. I still live with the 'ol mom (I'll get outta here one of these days,
). I have a sister, 22, also at Kennesaw State.
At the moment, I work at a pharmacy as a cashier - been with the company about 5.5 years now. It works for now, have some great co-workers. It makes me feel good to know that I'm helping people out, especially the older ones, even though they do sometimes try to run me over in their motorized cart
.
[Cliche on]I've been interested in flying for as long as I can remember[/off] - one of my first words was "air-car" because I saw what I thought were cars, but they were in the sky, so air-car made sense to me, lol. My dad and his brother purchased a '54 Super Cub in '86 - so I spent many hours hanging around the airport with him and fiddling with the plane. He took me taxiing in it quite often, and I always told him "now don't take off dad!" I guess I was a little aprehensive about actually taking flight, I was about 4. At 6 he took me flying in it for the first time and let me hold the stick on the takeoff climbout - I thought that was pretty slick, I guess that's when I got bit by the flying bug and from then on I knew I wanted to be a pilot when I grew up. Dad and I have spent many hours slipping the surly bonds.
At 14 I made my first unassisted landing. I began formal flight instruction at 15 and solo'd on my 16th birthday in a C-172. That was quite a feeling to be up there by myself, just me, the plane, and the sky - and I made what were probably the 3 best landings I'll ever make, just greased 'em on!
So in high school I decided I wanted to be a fighter pilot in the Air National Guard, specifically F-16's, but I'd settle for F-15's or A-10's, lol. However, a few years ago I found out I had scoliosis in my lower back (I didn't even know I had it) that would most likely DQ me from ejection seat aircraft. So I decided that I would go the civilian route to the airlines.
This fall I plan to start flight instructing to build time to get ready for what I hope will be another hiring boom.Would probably go with ASA, as they're based here in Atlanta, and my mom's a flight attendant for Delta, 43 years! I hope to end up flying for FedEx. Flying's in the blood and I can't see myself doing anything else.
My grandad was a barnstormer/test pilot in 20's and went on to fly for Pitcairn airmail, which evolved into Eastern Air Transport and eventually Eastern Airlines. He flew the first passenger flight out of Atlanta Hartsfield (Candler field at the time) and flew the last official open cockpit airmail flight. He also set the world altitude record for sailplanes in 1943 by flying up into a damn hailstorm! lol (the world/national has been broken but the Georgia record still stands). Here's a link to his journal entry about his ride up into that thunderstorm.
http://www.soar-mgsa.org/GeorgiaHOF/Hal ... 20Page.htm - and here's another page with his bio
http://www.dmairfield.com/people/charles_js/index.html Sadly I never got to meet him, as he died in '59 - but I'd say he's certainly a "hero" figure of mine, flew in the golden age of aviation, wish I could hear some of his stories. Both my uncles also flew for Eastern, one flew P-47's in the Guard as well as F-84's in Korea with the 49th FG 80th FS.
I'm writing a book here or something, lol. For my hobbies, I of course enjoy flying, second is performance cars - I have a '03 Mustang Cobra, black of course, modded all to hell, still somewhat reliable, it's my daily driver - makes ~530 RWHP and has been 11.95 @ 125 mph (weaksauce launch) I should be deep in the 11's! It's a heck of a lot of fun getting together with my other fast car friends on the weekends and cruising around, making passes down drag strip, road course or some curvy mountain roads. I'm always tinkering/fixing it or detailing the crap out of it.
And of course I enjoy playing sims on the PC. I started out in '95 with USNF Gold and ATF - followed by Longbow, iF-22 Raptor, Jetfighter I-III, Longbow 2, Su-27 Flanker, MSFS series, Janes WWII Fighters, Falcon 4.0 and quite a few others that I've forgotten in between them all. I like racing sims as well, like GPL, GTR, GTR2, GT Legends. I hate to think how many hours I've sat, baking myself in the glow of that big 'ol radiation tube, blasting bad guys, shooting approaches in MSFS, or trying to find that perfect racing line. I'd say I have 1,400 hours in Falcon 4 alone lol. I was in a few squadrons over the years with that sim, lots of fun.
I've been having an absolute blast flying with the Virtual Thunderbirds (trying out), what a great group of guys AND girl
Really good stuff to have the opportunity to fly with you all.
I just wrote a novel, how about that.
Great Scott Marty! Look at the length of that post!