Hi, a brief history of myself and my cockpit.
I have been making thing for what seems like all of my life, my father
was an engineer and brought me lots of construction toys as a kid. While
I was still a young child I discovered the joy of making plastic models
(those golden days before computers) and have been making them ever since.
This skill has served me well over the years, I got real good at making
and repairing things and seeing the other potential uses of ordinary objects.
I have been fascinated by aircraft since I was a small
child, ever since I watched them making the film “The Battle Of Britain”.
Most of the aerial scenes that used real aircraft were shot over the Kentish
countryside and my grandfather, who saw it all for real, used to take me
out to watch. It was a sight that has stuck with me ever since.
I was lucky enough to work next door to the RAF Battle
of Britain Memorial Flight for 3 years and even then, 40 years after the
war, everyone stopped and watched when those beautiful old ladies took
to the air. I used to get to watch them practising for their flying season
and loved every minute of it.
When I left school I joined the Royal Air force, by trade
I am an armourer, a weapon systems engineer, and I have been playing with
aircraft ever since. I discovered computers in the early 80’s and fell
in love with flight sim's. Looking back on them now they are so crude,
but at the time they were great. I can still remember trying to fly a F19
(remember it?) with a keyboard. I dreamed of finding a better way of doing
it, and have had the beginnings of this ‘mad project’ in my head for many
years. While surfing the web I came across Derek’s page and the last bit
of the puzzle fell into place. I have learnt many things now that I can
now use to further my mad dream of building a functional cockpit.
To date I have flown in the Mighty Phantom, one of the
best multi-role fighters of all time, the Tornado, one of the ugliest ever
built, but I have never flown a spitfire, Yet.
UK
