Origin story: why are you here?

[[CPT]milopugdog]

Hello, forum! I thought it would be interesting to share how we got into aviation, and eventually into this community, I guess I'll go first.

 

From when I was little, I'd always been interested in airplanes. My parents always taking me to the flight museum in Seattle. Having constantly been exposed to plane, I made myself a life goal to get a private pilot's license. I held this wish up despite not knowing the difference between a biplane and monoplane. In 6th grade, my dad brings me back a balsa Ju-87 kit from a modeling store in Canada, causing me to read a little more into variants.

7th grade rolls around. I'm being home schooled because my teachers and I weren't compatible. Aside from teaching myself from books, part of my history 'class' was watching the series World at War.

8th grade, and I'm now at a different public school. Having more interest in planes, and WW2 in general, my brother's friend introduced me to (the dreaded) WT. Having a Mac at the time, I couldn't download the game.

 

There was hope. Finding a WT wrapper (think port) by a man named Paul The Tall, I downloaded the game. The launcher crashed constantly. It took me about a week. Constant launcher crashes, and slow internet prolonged my download significantly, but I eventually made it.

Launching the game opened my eyes. I still remember the autumn overcast day, my mom pestering me to get off my computer and go outside. Even with the WORST graphic settings, probably getting around 20 FPS, WT successfully made me fall in love with aviation.

 

My first joystick: As a suprise, my parents got me a Logitech 3D Pro. I was terrible, but estatic. The only thing after this was practice for the Simulator Battles tutorial so I could finally use it. After 20 tries, I made it. Barely.

 

Introduction to IL-2: Wanting more practice, I started my search for a trainer. I'd been familiar with the IL-2 brand, having got the Nintendo DS game (yes it exists). Being on Steam for only $5, I picked up 1946.

 

Oh wait. That Mac thing again. Wrapper time!

It worked. I was in.

 

December 2014:

I have a new PC built for IL-2 BoS, had been introduced to it by Phly Daily.

I didn't have the money though, so settled for CloD with the TF mods and WT until I did.

 

Feb 2015:

As a gift from my father, $80 got put into my bank account. The purchasing of BoS soon ensued.

After this, WT and BoS battled for my attention until BoS ruined WT air battles with it's FMs.

 

Today:

I've gotten myself a HOTAS and rudder pedals, BoX is by far my favorite game, though my conversational obsession has long since died.

My goal has also not been forgotten! As of this, I have 24 logged flight hours.

 

 

Thank you to this community, and this wonderful dev team! You've given me the environment I have gradually grown to want from a simulation, though sometimes I wish I could have been here at beta.

Better later than never though, right?

[Cybermat47]

My Dad has loved aircraft for a long time, and through visits to the Australian War Memorial, which boasts an extraordinary collection of British, Australian, American, German, Japanese, and Soviet aircraft (including a V-1 cruise missile) from WWI to Vietnam, as well as viewings of the film Battle of Britain, me and my older brother fell in love with aircraft.

 

We played Blazing Angels, and eventually my brother bought IL-2 1946. I still remember my first time playing, taking a Bf-109 E against B-17s over the Crimea. Good times.

 

I finally discovered the career mode after a while, and that really cemented my love of the genre. To be able to step into the shoes of a WWII pilot, not in a predetermined campaign, but making my own way through the 'war', was a remarkable experience for me back then, and ever since, a career mode has been the number one thing I look for in a flight sim.

 

The interest in WWII inevitably led to an interest in WWI, and I longed to play RoF. Two years or so after discovering it, I found it was free, and yes, it did have a career mode - two excellent ones, in fact! And that lead to me finding the new IL-2 game. And here I am.

 

(Funnily enough, this forum actually led me to play WT... I had played the console versions that came before, IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey, and Birds of Steel, and I had enjoyed them a great deal, so I started playing WT.)

 

As for the impact aviation has had on my life at large, I've been in the Australian Air Force Cadets for nearly two years. I'm hoping to either be an Aircraft Armaments Technician in the Royal Australian Air Force, or a historian (specialising in military history, of course) when I leave school.

Edited November 11, 2016 by Cybermat47

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 Long story short. Uncle built WW2 scale models so got sucked in to planes and aviation. Played a lot of different sims/games related to flying on various platforms(console/PC/whatever). 20 years of aircraft maintenance in our Air Force and still going. Needless to say planes and simulators are an interest.

[Finkeren]

I first got hooked on WW2 aircraft at age 5 or 6 when my dad bought me a crappy scale model of a Spitfire (which he insisted on calling "Speedfire").

Edited November 11, 2016 by Finkeren

[Trooper117]

As a young lad growing up not that long after the war had ended, I spent many enthralling hours listening to the adult population recount their stories about what they did in the war.

Many were pilots and aircrew that gave me a hungering to join the RAF when I grew up.

 

Imagine my surprise when I realised that the RAF now flew jets, and that it was no longer possible to strap on a Spitfire or Hurricane and shoot down the Luftwaffe over the channel!

And so my urge to join the RAF took a bit of a nose dive, but I never lost the fascination of WWII aircraft and combat.

 

As I was brought up in a children's home I was extremely lucky that it's owners were keen to foster the history of the war to us young sprats, and they took us to airbases, air shows and museums which only nurtured my interest further.

 

And then came the world of the PC with the ability to transport me to other worlds, and so my love of WWII (and WWI) was able to be fulfilled... the rest is history.

I still visit Duxford, Old Warden, and Hendon on a regular basis, plus next year I'll be taking a gaggle of grandchildren with me as well, as they are already showing interest in that direction... happy days!

[TP_Silk]

I had an interest in military aircraft ever since I was a lad in the 60's and 70's. I used to build Airfix and Revel models and paint them up (badly) and a few even got suspended from my bedroom ceiling on cotton thread. Fast forward through my adolescent and early adult years and in the late 90's I started playing PC games. Amongst those were F-22 Raptor by Novalogic, Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator I, II and III, Il-2: Sturmovik (including Forgotten Battles and Pacific Fighters). I am now a little ashamed to admit that I flew all of these on easy arcade-type settings, but I had a lot of fun doing so. I stopped playing flight sims by about 2004/5 as I was more into RPG and MMO games by then.

 

Fast forward to earlier this year and I had a sudden hankering to dust off the old joystick and start flying again. By this time I found that I could only play some of those old games on a Windows XP Virtual Machine on my Windows 7 box and that some of them had silly graphics card restrictions in place, so I eventually decided that the way to go was to look at the modern incarnation of the venerable IL-2 Sturmovik series Battle of Stalingrad. I quite enjoyed the single player campaigns, but gradually got to a place where I wanted to learn more about how to fly on Expert mode and decided to combine that with joining an online community as that's something that I really liked about my time in MMOs. I found the Tangmere Pilots website, applied, scraped through the OTU assessments and have been having great fun with them ever since.

 

Once I even landed a Lagg-3 without doing a pirouette - nobody saw it though   

[Luft1942]

I'll keep it short. War Thunder sim didn't cut it for me and I found it very arcadey. IL-2 is the bee's knees.

[IRRE_Centx]

I come from Lorraine, east of France, 50km from Verdun.

So since my childhood I'm used to hear WWI-WWII stories, used to find bullets/rockets/shells/objects and even bombs in the fields/forests close to my house. Found a WWII 500 lb British bomb one time... deminers detonated it in front of me :D

Got the most passionate History teacher when I was 10-12 years old, transmitted me his passion for the WWII.


Then I got WWII Fighter Jane's simulation in a pack of 10 games in 2000. Was young but I loved it! Completely arcadey, no simulation intended (but eh I was young :D).

 

Loooooots of years after, WT came out. And with it a lot of childhood memories. Started in Arcade, then "Realistic" and ended in Simulator battles... still with mouse and keyboard but I managed to fly fighters efficiently even without joystick. 

Bought a joystick and BoS, but actually I never used them (too lazy to learn how to play it at this time :D)

 

Then did a pause from WT for 14-15 months and suddenly I had the will to fly again... and this time I wasn't lazy, so I did put on my joystick and here I am :D

Edited November 11, 2016 by -IRRE-Centx

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

I'll try to keep it short.

 

One side of my family is a flying family, so to speak. Air force father, grandfather flew in the 1940s and 1950s and great-grandfather flew all the way from the 1930s until his death aboard a Lockheed Electra (someone sabotaged the aircraft, and while attempting a forced landing to save the passengers he deployed flaps but one wing had its flaps tampered with, causing the aircraft to flip over and crash). All the stories, family photos and day to day life were spent near aircraft.

 

The virtual side started with Chuck Yeager's Air Combat on the very first computer my family owned. As technology advanced, so did the flight simulators. Parallel to our domestic CYsAC adventures, my grandfather went from CYsAC to Red Baron 2 and Combat Flight Simulator on his own computer. I loved playing both, and spent a good few hours there whenever I visited. At home, me and my father got ourselves Novalogic's excellent combo pack of MiG-29 and F-16, both of which were great fun, and Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3D. Then came Flanker 2.5, which we shared with my grandfather as well and the whole bunch spent hours doing landing runs with the Su-33 to see who could land on the Kuznetsov without exploding, and spamming missiles around. Other simulators entered the picture at around the same time - Flight Simulator 2002, Combat Flight Simulator 2/3 and Il-2 Sturmovik.

 

As it were, the years passed and only two of us are left, the situation with simulators has gone the same way. FS2002 and CFS 1/2/3 faded away. Il-2 Sturmovik gave way to Il-2 Sturmovik: 1946. Flanker 2.5 evolved into Lock On, then Lock On Flaming Cliffs, Lock On 2 and finally DCS. By the time those evolutions came around I had a brief stint on Rise of Flight, which gave the feeling of flight none before it did, but my rig wasn't up to the task. Back in 2013, while checking news for DCS, I got word that there was a new Il-2 coming out. It was early days but it looked exciting, so I kept checking on it every couple of months since I was using a Mac back then. Once I got my computer again in 2015, I resumed playing Il-2 1946 and DCS/LO 2 until this February when I was gifted a copy of Il-2 Battle of Stalingrad. The rest, as they say, is history - very fresh history of course, but history nonetheless.

[=WH=PangolinWranglin]

I guess my story starts with Minecraft, oddly enough...

I love Minecraft (still love modded), and while watching a video, I saw a video of Kerbal Space Program made by TryDyingToLive. This game (which is my most played to date) lead me to a love of engineering and spacecraft. This started in 8th grade and continued through to the end of Sophomore year of High School, 2 years ago. The first day of summer, I got a gaming PC and built it myself. A friend recommended a good aircraft game: War Thunder. When I found Battle of Stalingrad, I had about 400-500 hours in WT. I bought BoS and 1946 and only played 1946 for a while. I couldn't let go of WT but after 800 hours and a few "odd" decisions from the devs, I quit. I couldn't take it. I switched to BoS, using 1946's simpler flight models as a learning aid, as it gave me less trouble with learning. Soon after setting up and learning my joystick, I gave BoS a shot and was hooked ever since. I tried getting a friend to join me, but he bought the regular version and mistakenly recieved the starter version, which only includes the 109 f4 and the Lagg 3 and never reported it to customer service and blames the game for the mistake so oh well... But at least I know others who play it. 

Edited November 16, 2016 by =DF=spaceman1999

[Guest deleted@50488]

Well, I believe aviation entered my life the day my father took me to the airport watching some airplanes - I was around 4 yo, I believe and was told ...  By that time the two Constellations were still at one of the parking slots in LPPT, and many prop aircraft operated regularly to Lisbon.... The Caravelle was also still part of TAP's fleet...

 

In 1980 I got my PPL, which I still keep :-)  I fly gliders only. Tried to add ULM, but it was too expensive to maintain, and I gave up...

 

I never liked war and even less air war, but I soon was pointed towards what my father thought was the most beautiful ww2 aicraft - the Stuka. He bought an Heller kit, and it was my first kit. Many followed, scales 1/72 and 1/48...

 

When I got into computer science for the university and as a profession, games in a PC were the last thing I was willing to use, until a teacher showed me, around 1987, MSFS running on a Mac. I completely fell in love for it, and from there on, and specially after I got my first sim PC in 1995, I never stopped simming.

 

Civil flight simulation was my main focus, and I guess I tried pretty much every tittle you can name, but while I was serving at the Portuguese Airforce a friend an pilot showed CYAC, the first Apache heli sim and I diverted to combat flight simulators along my simmer life always for the same reasons - trying to find the best flight dynamics, that civil sims weren't able to provide.

 

Around 2013 I was tempted by DCS's p51d, soon got involved with other modules, until I was offered a copy of IL-2 BoS. From there one my passion for this sim has been growing from update to update, and while I still play DCS's UH-1H and the ww2 modules and find it also a great sim ( 1st place ex-aequo with il2 battle of.. in terms of flight dynamics IMHO ) I start il-2 most of the time.

 

I also own RoF but almost never start it ( actually not even installed right now ), and did try the original IL2 by Oleg, and CoD a couple of years ago, but, honestly, in terms of immersion, nothing that I have tried compares to ill-2 battle of...

[150GCT_Veltro]

No doubts about me, i remember very well.

 

70's, NATO Air Base "Miramare". F-104G.

During the summer holidays, i did ask my father to go here almost every day, i was no more than a children (5 years old if i look my photo at that time). I also remember i did begin to model F-104G with LEGO. After many years, i've served in the same Fighter Group as firefighting/rescue. A nice story.

Some movies like "Battle of Midway", "Tora, Tora, Tora", "Aces High" did hopen my mind on WW2 and WW1 aviation.

 

Edited November 18, 2016 by 150GCT_Veltro

[Feathered_IV]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNhbrIYGetc

[6./ZG26_Custard]

This...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lead to this...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which in turn lead to these..

 

 

 

Which got me started here..

 

And umpteen sims later I ended up here...

 

[Lusekofte]

Coin-operated WW 1 arcade sim at the age of 13 37 years ago made me wait for something better, bought my first 486 pentium in 1996 and some arcadish cfs games. IL 2 and microsoft combat simulator in the beginning of 2000 and flown ever since with no long stops. Started to fly DCS just some month ago, but owned it since the release of LockOn Now I fly modern and semi modern helicopters and a little Jet (A 10C and SU 25T) And for the first time in my 50 years old life I like jets and Helicopters. I think it is the feeling of learning something every time I fly.

Been interested in WW2 planes since 6 years old, we have a lot of wrecks around Narvik Norway ( BF 110 , JU 87,JU 52, JU 88, H 111, Fokker, and different seaplanes) I dived and hiked the mountains looking at them. 

 

Been there diving, there was taken 4 planes from that lake but there are many left

[unreasonable]

As my father was a RAF doctor, I spent much of my childhood in the 60s hanging around watching things like Vulcans, Lightnings and so on take off, making scale models and all the usual stuff.

 

But then - myopia. So then forgot all about planes for a long time, until much later. Messing about with PC wargames in the 80s and came across Microprose Stealth Fighter (IIRC) which was fun. Then RL.... then much later got in RB3D and EAW. Which eventually led to IL2 and RoF. (SP)

 

So much to generate an interest in this hobby: the history, the tactics, how flight works - plus the problems of designing a game/simulation. We are lucky, I think, that there is still a company or two making this stuff for us.

[PFR_Bearkiller72]

On my side it's a genetic thing, I guess. My grandpa always wanted to be a flyer and made his first few hops with the SG-38 in the Flieger-HJ in the late 30's.

But whilst being screened by Luftwaffe doctors, they found he had a slight red-green colour-blindness, just enough to rule out any use as flying personnel.

Anyway his fascination with anything with wings, be it feathered or aluminum, must have somewhat infected me at a very young age.

To keep my busy and adopt some mechanical skills, my dad bought some Matchbox plastic kits (the easy, 2-coloured ones) and at first guided me

through the building process.

Later on I steadily filled my rooms ceiling and practically every vacant spot with aeroplane model kits up to the mighty 1:72 B-52 and several

1:32 F-4 Phantoms.

Living near a major Airport helped fuel the fascination and when time for planning the future came around, I seriously considered a career in the armed forces as a helicopter pilot.

But then - myopia.

Sounds familiar... 

 

Seeing my eyesight (they were not too weak, but just enough) wouldn't let me go anywhere near the seat on the right side of a UH-1 and being screened for duty in December 1990, with no enemy left on the eastern border, I chose a civilian life instead.

 

Back then I had done my first few flying hours on a C64 in "Ace Of Aces", soon followed by anything that promised flight simming on the Amiga

(anyone remember "Flight Of The Intruder", or "Birds Of Prey"?).

The PC "entered service" a few years later and with it came what I've been waiting for all of those years,

a WWII sim with fantastic graphics and immersion: Janes' WWII Fighters.

CFS 1&2 were nice, but when old Il-2 Sturmovik hit the shelves they all just faded into oblivion.

From there it was CloD and now BoX and DCS, in which I finally found an adequate substitute for a dream of the past: flying the Huey.

Edited December 11, 2016 by SK_Bearkiller72

[Sokol1]

Well, if "I remember when" well: 

 

Living, in the end of 1960's in a rural zone in middle of Latin America country, besides my parents tuning briefly, for spare battery,  AM radio for news at 19:00hs - at time that "Moon race" are "the hit" and even here in middle of "rest of the world" mother said about that "atomic bomb" drop by planes... my "window for the world" - gifted by Aunts living in distant city in their visits, was this:

 

 

In one issue has a history of a girl lost from their parents in chaos of fall of Singapore - Empire of the Sun style, illustrated be dramatic drawing of Japanese planes diving over lines in the harbor.

Other was a history of boy living in USA interior in early aviation days, that tell about the attempt with his grandfather make a glider, draw by horses - not so much successful. That history describe the size of the glider, then I draw this in the sand to realize the size of the thing. 

 

The final bit a local version of Popular Mechanics that I find in the cabinet of our teacher - at time our rural school was in their house, due politics issues, think that it was 72 - and I able to see briefly, she don't like of my unauthorized "incursion" in the place and put me out, locking the cabinet. That issue show the plan and how build a... R/C (1 channel) model airplane: 

 

 

 

 

This drawing never leave my mind - at years find a online copy.

 

Well, took decades until I am able to built my first model airplane, U-Control.

The rest is common history, starting "electronically" with ATARI River Raid, then Sega EF-2000, Mig-29... 486 computer and 1942 - The Pacific Air War.

 

Edited December 11, 2016 by Sokol1

[ITAF_Rani]

Building Airfix models since i was 13 and hear stories from my grandfather made me a propeller addicted :-)

When in the early yeras of 2000 I discovered the first serie Il2..I thought my dreams came true since in the middle of 80 I knew the sim arcade "their finest hour"..I never get it..and when I was child I remeber to dream watching at that box...In the first year of 2000 I bought my first PC and after short time in cfs 2..my next was the great IL2...now the saga continues thanks to 777-1C marvelous job

Edited December 14, 2016 by ITAF_Rani

[Ace_Pilto]

Why am I here?

 

Well, momma Ace and poppa Ace got a bit frisky one night back in 1979 and... well...

 

You don't want to know more and neither do I.

 

I just like screwing around with old planes, learning about how they work, simulating the challenges faced by aviators back in the day and this platform happens to have the most realistic equivalent to flying old planes that I've ever seen. I've tried everything else and they all sucked compared to this for one reason or another.

 

DCS, flick switches and fly under power lines, decent game with some great development teams but not enough content to keep me playing after I learn which switches to flick.

BMS Great game but why not join the real air force and get paid for spending 3 years to learn it?

Old Il-2 Pick (back in the day) plane with biggest guns wins. (Now) Nostalgic fun, top game but not really relevant anymore.

Il-2 CLOD: The mods will fix it one day.... Maybe...

War Thunder. Gib monies, Buy best plen. You win over 9,000 medals. 

 

This game is where it's at, nothing else compares. It's as real as it gets. It really is that good.

[BOO]

I started with models (still do them but skinning involves less mess and a reduced chance of inhaling carcinogens). In 1998 i got my first PC, a Voodoo Rage 3D card and a game called F22 which i though was the dogs (800x600 max res). Then i didnt think it was the dogs any more and got CFS 1. Then i found that was just a dog and found EAW. OH BOY - that first trip over the channel with Tempest around me actually moving up and down like what real ones do was mindblowing. Played that until 2001 when IL2 came amongst us. 

 

Fast forward to 2005 and i found Call of duty and FPS and consoles and minecraft and zombies and that was that - until 2015 when i recovered  my old pc from a damp garden outhouse and found it still worked after about 3 years of being semi submerged!. As this was supposedly to help my boy with his homework upgrades were minimal but good enough to get CLOD working ok. HOOKED! - I resisted BOS cos everyone said it was crap. My you everyone said CLOD was crap and it wasnt so why the hell i listened is beyond me!!. Anyhow, several hundreds of pounds of peripherals and upgrades later (i still use a GTX750TI until santa brings me a 1070 later this month - ) the boy was told to use an abacus and the PC is now mine and mine alone. 

 

I bought BOS in Mar 2016 and hated it - primarily because it was sooo different to CLOD (like when did trees actually start to pose a threat? :-)) but it just didnt gell with me. In Nov i tried it again and......what the hell happened?.........was it a patch?, was it 64 bit?...was it the devs changing tack?.....but it rocks! I still think CLOD is good and i still feel more comfortable on CLOD servers at the moment but this is the dangles this is and it complements CLOD nicely.

 

I also have DCS............somewhere.....

 

Regards

 

BOO

[Cpt_Cool]

Boy.  I loved the airplanes as a kid, I remember the parents first computer had f4u secret sortie (holla if you know whats up). That game came out when I was 2 years old so i must have been older when i played it, but my first love was EAW (and i cant stress that enough).  Followed closely by MCFS2. Nothing came close to those two games (I never heard of Il-2 for some reason) until ROF. CLoD was a disappointment, salvaged by TF, but BOX is where it is at these days.

[HeavyCavalrySgt]

I come from an aviation family.  My father was an armorer in the 860th Bomb Squadron at Debach during WW2, and picked up his PPL after the war.  He owned a T-Craft then a Stinson Voyager and finally a 172 that is still in the family.  He liked to say that metal skinned aircraft lacked personality.

 

My brother started of in gliders, instructing and giving rides and got his PPL and an instrument rating.  I started on my glider rating but life happened for a few decades before I got back in the cockpit.

 

I grew up building and flying models, going to museums and airshows and watching my father design and build various flying contraptions, sometimes based on a design he had seen or built previously, sometimes his own unique creations.  I think my first flight sim might have been on a TI-99/4A- a very basic 2d GA flight sim.

 

I worked as an Aviation Electronics Tech in the US Navy aboard Saratoga, Washington, Ike and Kennedy on the SH-3 and -60, the Hornets, Tomcats and Prowlers, mostly tactical navigation systems and IFF systems.  After I got out of the Navy I worked for a defense contractor that dealt with airbreathing and non-airbreathing ISR platforms.

 

My next objective - I think - will be to do some aerobatics and perhaps an amphibious rating.  I am also interested in getting back in sailplanes.

 

On my bucket list is to land something with skis on a glacier, look up at trees going by me flying down a river and operate from a river bank or a sandbar.

[I./JG2_Sekij]

I was allways a little bit interessted in Pre Korea War Planes... but didnt got intouch with alot of media. Most WW2 air war games i knew had first of all only american or british planes to fly and even worse it had an HP system which is a no go for such games.

 

WoWP trailer for Close beta hooked me first but i couldnt download it even beeing a Close beta tester (because it wanted to be automatic downloaded to Drive C which was full). Im quite happy that i didnt play this "sim". Because it was again an HP based game...  really dumb.

 

Well than i saw a GameStar Review of War Thunder in january 2013. War Thunder has a big place in my heart for showing me the all the nice planes and a really good damage model for the time, also the first flight game which could be played with Mouse in a great way. Played alot of Arcade first in Cockpit Only.

 

Wasnt enough for me and i switched to Sim... still like it even WT has ALOOOOT of problems. I also bought the most cheapest Joystick which i still prefer for the stuff i do.

 

Sim Community bashed WT alot and i tryed the might il2 1946. And it was fun but the view settings didnt work as good as in WT and the flyng felt much more arcadish than WT... like really.

 

 

 

Finaly Il-2 BoS came out and i start to playing it... didnt like it that much for a long time (until Dx11 update)... okay and i didnt like it at first because from WT ace to  a total Noob who gets rekt all the tim. Now im really obsessed with flying again :D especial because the wings of libery server triggers the Statswhore in me. http://il2stat.aviaskins.com:8008/de/pilot/4619/I./JG2_Sekij/?tour=18

 

Im somehow a masochist because i really love to fly the LaGG 3 which is really hard to use against german OP fighters >.<

[6./ZG26_Klaus_Mann]

My First Word, followed shortly afterwards by "Mama" was "Bus". At age 3 I could name pretty much almost every Make and Model of the Cars I saw on the street. I learned to read at 5 and just started reading about Cars, Planes, Ships, Locomotives, History and Comedy. I just read and read and read.  I must have been 7 when I got my first Joystick and MFS98 on a crappy PC. That's where I learned the basics. Then I went to MFS2000 and CFS1 (don't remember in which order) and just flew the shit out of those. Also had Train Sim and many Driving games. 

 

Throughout my early life we vacationed a lot in places where there were Steam and Diesel Trains around and I would nag my family to use them, and quite often even got Cab Rides up Front. I loved the Smell of Hot Coal and Sweaty, Hard Working Men and Hot Metal and Grease (Man, that sounds gay). The Coal Dust would stick with you and to this day I find that combination of smells very comforting. Old Diesels just move me. 

 

I spent a lot of time outside fixing bicycles and spending time in the woods with friends getting a bit of Mechanical Confidence, I had Kites which we rose in the fields. That was the closest I got to flying anything at that point. 

 

I think my first Airshow was the ILA in 2004. And the classics just hooked me. I loved the sounds of big radials and V12s, having very little clue what they were at that point, I just loved them. I remember my father getting into a fight with a Plane-Spotter over a Front Row Place. The Ju-52 was my favourite, it just sounded amazing. In had a couple RC Planes and Helis, but never really pursued it. 

 

Later (must have been around 2007-2008, so age 11-12 I got CFS3 and shortly afterwards FSX, and even later P3D. I spent tons of time on Freeware Airliners (Thanks to Jens B. Kristensen) and I had the Just Flight Constellation and the TeamX DC-2 as well as Lionhearts Pasped Skylark. 

 

I took somewhat of a Hiatus from Combat Flight Simming until a good friend of mine (who I am desperately trying to get into Il-2 now) got me into War Thunder and World of Tanks, when they went into Beta Testing. War Thunder brought me back to Combat Flying. 

Now I got really annoyed be the limitations of War Thunder and the general Disinterest of the Devs to build an in depth game instead of just pushing out as much stuff as possible to please the Arcade Crowd. 

 

Got my Motorcycle and Car License, got into Classic BMWs, still have one today, a '95 R100RT and an '86 R65. (Too poor to get an R25, although that's on my Bucket List. Even Bid on one last year, but they are damn expensive, even the bad ones.

 

In 2014 I got my A-Levels here in Germany and somewhat used that to break free of my parently restraints, which allowed me to really pursue flying. I got myself an internship at a Local Ultralight Trike Manufacturer and flew in something lighter than a 737 for the first time there. 

 

Then moved to the Place I live now, away from my Parents, entered the Student Gliding Club at my University and became the most active flyer there. Spent pretty much every flyable Weekend either fixing or flying Aircraft. 

 

I heard about Il-2 and came in when it was around 90% finished. Entered ZG26 a bit more than a year ago and stuck with it ever since. 

 

 

Well, that's enough about me, next one please. 

Edited January 23, 2017 by 6./ZG26_Klaus_Mann