I always promised myself that I wouldn’t push my kids into aviation. I want them to find their passion just like I did growing up. Sure, they know what I do and the subject comes up regularly but I’ve always felt that if they want to do what I do, they need to initiate the steps to make it happen.
My kids love to travel and they have been on plenty of airliners as we typically use that mode of travel to get back and forth to Ohio. They also seem to be genuinely interested in the business aviation side of the industry that I live in.
It seems that this summer saw a marked change in interest after we visited the New England Air Museum as a family. They loved seeing all the old planes, flying the simulators and generally just being around aircraft. Seeing their enthusiasm, I brought home a flight simulator control system from work and set up the X-Plane flight simulator program on the computer which is the modern day “Flight Sim” that I grew up using.
To say that they are addicted is an understatement. They each get 30 minutes of computer time per day and they are choosing to fly every single day. In fact, Carter wakes up and flies first thing every day before breakfast.
With this new (and self found) enthusiasm, I did ask if anyone wanted to go flying in my company plane this weekend. Carter jumped at the opportunity and we just got home from a fun and exciting journey that took us over our town, a circle around the house and then a quick jaunt up to Hartford to drop it off for some regular maintenance work.
I think he has the aviation fever since I can see him reacting to the same things I did when I was his age. There isn’t a plane that flies over that we don’t stop, watch and discuss the model, where it is headed and what altitude we think it is cruising at. He even gives me nightly reports of what he saw during the school day outside at recess!
We shall see where this goes. I’d be thrilled if one or more of the kiddos take up aviation as a career. However, I’ll be happy if they simply find something that makes them happy and/or is something that they are passionate about. That love for something makes it very easy to get up and head to work each day!