Life provides all manner of opportunities and it seems one you and I have enjoyed was easing back on the control column at the appropriate speed and lifting into the air, and I bet that feeling never gets old to you either. My school took the grade 8 class for a treat each year as they passed on to high school. My year they took us to YQA for a plane ride.I got to sit beside the pilot. A 15 minute ride and I was hooked.
I was always fascinated by flying. My basement bedroom was filled with Airfix 1/72nd models hanging from the ceiling. I got my private license on an Air Cadet scholarship when I was 18. I was also an oily rag, tearing apart my old cars in the driveway because I couldn't afford to have anyone else fix them, so I took aircraft maintenance at BCIT.. I was an AME and flight engineer before I got a flying job as a pilot.
No, the flying part never did get old but much of mine was long haul and as you get older it is harder to deal with being permanently tired and screwed up by jet lag and losing several nights sleep every month. It was great when I was in my thirties, not so great in my fifties. Guys used to ask me if I felt better after I retired. I told them it was really nice to feel the same every day for a change. The only flying that would appeal to me these days is low and slow. I learned to fly on a Fleet 80, wouldn't mind owning one of those but my finances have other demands.
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