Forum: Off-topic

To kick this off, I might as well start. My primary interest (as if regular readers couldn't guess) is egress systems. In the mid 70s as I was in my teens/tweens I was interested in military aircraft especially the venerable F-4 Phantom II and the SR-71. As a detail freak I wanted to know everything about them but as I learned more I became somewhat discouraged as there was so much to learn. I focused in on the cockpit with the hope that someday I'd get the chance to be a pilot.

Then one day I read an article on the ejection seat and became entranced. First, the seat is one of the most visible parts of the cockpit, my favorite part of the jet. Second, the technology is amazing. To a pilot, it is somewhat simple, pull one or two handles and you are safely on the way to the ground. To a designer, there are dozens of possibilities they have had to consider and design features for. third, the seat has to work. No matter how long it has been in tthe jet, no matter how many times it was pulled for maintainance, it has to work. and fourth, but not necessarily last, the seat, or really egress system is a self contained vehicle with propulsion, life support, and a recovery system. some modern seats even have attitude/direction control.

Since then I have been interested in guns, tanks, aircraft, submarines, military technology, and aviation technology, but I always come back to egress...

How about you?

Kevin
The Ejection Site

F-16.net Sponsor

Well...my primary hobby is military a/c(no specific plane but I like WWII better)My father works in ther RSAF and used to bring me to the bases when I was younger...He likes to construct modal planes and I would play with them(they ended up broken)

Other intrest include WWII and erm...any other war?heh..

I used to love a certain show...The Black Sheep Squadron...
I used to watch it religiously when I lived in Mexico City, my birthplace. My grandma used to take care of me at that time, and so she bought me my frist model, a Revell/Lodela 1/48 scale F4U Corsair. I built the thing with her help, and of course it was slopped with the nasty tube glue.......I was three years old.....
How do I describe how I got into aviation? Even at three years old I was smitten. As a kid I was in deep smit, and as an adult it's only gotten worse. I am now a pilot, and it's been one of my lifelong dreams. Bulding models? Well I started with that BSS Corsair and never looked back. My current projects are three, yes three F-16's! Very Happy

Ever since then, I've been enthralled with anything mechanical and technical, and I have an uncanny ability to take in and store information...some useful, most of it not, well to some people Wink

Somewhere along the line, my model building turned to the automotive variety. This I do remember though....1987, a small Italian firm decided to build a car to commemorate their 40th anniversary. A twin-turbcharged, 470hp metallic beauty. It was ***** on wheels...and I just HAD to build a model of it. So I did and it sparked yet another of my passions-automobiles and racing. A few days ago I stoped by the local Ferrari dealership and they had an F40 front and center on the showroom. It brought back a lot of memories, most notably that Tamiya model I built back in the days... So now as well as being an aircraft modeler, I also build cars. And while I am still a Ferrari fan, it doesn't come close to my affinity to another automaker-yet another small company out of Gunma, Japan by the name of Subaru. Smile

Yes I'm also a rally fanatic. GO PETTER!!! WORLD CHAMPION 2003!!!

But make no mistake about it, I'm a pilot first, and a driver second.

I've rambled on long enough.....

My primary hobby is aviation (military and civil). I guess it came from the fact that my father works for IAI about 20 years now (I'm 15 yrs. old) and my brother (25 now) went to the Air-Force Academy when he was 19 but didn't past the course ( Neutral

)

Hmmm... are we allowed to NOT be experts in our hobbies?
If so, I would say snowboarding. I've only discovered it a year ago, but I've loved it ever since. And it's quite funny that it came to happen out of not being able to ski on the big slopes coz there wasn't much snow at the beginning of the winter holidays and not wanting to ski on the smaller ones that had artificial snow... Now I'm counting the days left to go till I go back home for 4 weeks of board riding (hopefully this year we'll have enough snow from the start of the holidays). Other than that, military fighting vehicles, especially a/c and football and archery. I'm also quite fond of PC games and movies and books, but I'll drop them in an instant for a rush of andrenaline.

I was a musician all through high school and a music major my first four years at college. For a number of reasons I had a complete change of heart and got really interested in cars. I started taking engineering courses and applying what I learned to cars. In the end I had really bad grades but a really fast car.... Smile

A lot of the engineering courses I took were in the mathematical modeling and simulation of physical systems. When I graduated college I took a job with a flight simulator company and that got me interested in airplanes. While doing research into different aircraft we were simulating I met an aviation author and photographer (also a hobby of mine) and was subsequently introduced to people who would have otherwise only been names in books to me. I won't drop names here but many are quite well known. These contacts have allowed me to learn much more about specific aircraft and programs than I would otherwise have been able to have access to.

Well, my first hobby is probably to get more and more info about military aircraft, and trying to down as many Korean bandits in Falcon 4 as I can, too.

Like Habu, the Black Sheep TV series probably made me enter the aviation world and made me dream a lot (now, I enjoy CFS2, it is good too Wink

). The series was called Les Têtes Brulées (the Daredevils) on French TV. I still like to watch it when it is broadcasted again, even if I know every episode by heart now.

The earliest aviation-related TV show I remember was either Whirlybirds or maybe the Clutch Cargo cartoons. Years later it was 12 o'Clock High... all these shows were in black and white, before color TV. Embarassed

Wildcat wrote:

Well, my first hobby is probably to get more and more info about military aircraft, and trying to down as many Korean bandits in Falcon 4 as I can, too.

Like Habu, the Black Sheep TV series probably made me enter the aviation world and made me dream a lot (now, I enjoy CFS2, it is good too Wink

). The series was called Les Têtes Brulées (the Daredevils) on French TV. I still like to watch it when it is broadcasted again, even if I know every episode by heart now.

Ha, yeah the Black Sheep Squadron was actually called Los Tigres Voladores in Mexico, meaning the "Flying Tigers"....course we all know there was an actual Flying Tigers squadron, but there wasn't a show about it. For some reason they chose to name the show that instead what the direct translation would have been, which is Escuadron De Los Borregos Negros.

I was cruising through the depths of the F-16.net forum archives and found this thread. Very cool and very interesting!!! I got into aviation at a very early age because my dad decided to build models of different planes and hang them from my cieling. Yes, we watched Black Sheep Squadon and we also went to the Miramar Air Show every year without fail. I wanted to be a fighter pilot, but eyesight and asthma wouldn't allow it.

Cars are also an interest of mine and I will always love the old '88 IROC I had, even if it was an incredible money pit! I couldn't afford to have someone do the work for me, so I had to do it myself and I'm glad I did it. I learned quite a bit about different systems and how they work together along with how different things like fuel injection work in general. I think I'll have to get another one someday - I miss those hood louvers and T-tops!!!

My current area of interest (aside from learning everything I can on F-16.net) is R/C soaring. I had a radio controlled glider many years ago, but other interests took over after I completely re-kitted the wing. I got another one last month, but a high start launch went horribly wrong and another wing bit the dust. I'm currently building another plane which is all EPP (Expanded PolyPropylene) foam which will stand up to crashes a whole lot better!!! Anyone else into R/C?

Hey, thanks for dragging it back up! Very Happy

Unlike most, I'm actually a computer guy. I love F-16s, but they're just way too far out of my reach (in money, amongst other things) to even think about as any kind of "hobby"...

I got into computers about 10 years ago. Since then, I've learned so much about them... I probably know more than most "college-created" computer techs now. Knowledge is not directly based on how much experience you have, but how much you've learned since then. I'm sure a lot of F-16 sim nerds that have never even touched a real F-16 could probably get in one and figure out how to fly it without much help at all. Of course the experience is very different. Razz

I've gotten tired of these computers, though... there's almost nothing I haven't done.... it's like, what more is there to do? Maybe that's why I'm into F-16s as well. They're just so cool. Laughing

Hmm, well, I'm intested in military aviation, pretty much like everyone else here.

But although It's a quite large intest now, i don't really have a "primary hobby"-just many.

Rock climbing, swimming, running & shooting are more "outdoor" hobbies of mine, & i'm an avaition scale model builder, although not anywhere near as good as some guys on here, you know who you are.

Used to be very fond of mountain biking, but after a nasty accident recently, from which i came away very lucky-even though i didn't think it at the time, I don't jump off stuff or "street ride" as much, just cross country.

Anyway, and my final hobby would have to be autosport, WRC, DTM & BTCC in particular.

I have to finish this off by saying the F-16 is one of few aircraft I would consider "awsome"-it's got my respect anyday.

Forum: Off-topic

How and why did you become interested in your primary hobby?