Read the forum code of contact
By: - 23rd August 2005 at 13:19 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Difficult question to answer Kev,
I would say:
All of the above.......
I get a lot of satisfaction out of the various activities that are widespread being a modeller at one end learning about the construction of the various aircraft types or contacting next of kin to bring them some good news about their missing relatives on the other side. There is so much in between.
Cheers
Cees
By: - 23rd August 2005 at 16:34 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
The sound of a merlin engine as I close my eyes, when a Spit/Hurri or P51 roars by, the exhaust crackling that particular way as it passes, and I have to hold back a tear . . .I could be in a crowd of hundred's of people, yet that sound and I are alone.
The run of quick sunlight, sliding and flickering along a Spitfire's beautiful wings as I look up and watch it climb and roll. The smell of petrol and oil and the ticking of a cooling engine.
At Perranporth airfield in the late summer evening after all the private pilot's have gone home, standing in the middle of the huge expanse of green dancing grass and warm black tarmac . . .the breeze swishes past me and on it the whispers of ghosts, saying thanks and it's alright.
That special and very private feeling that I've been here before, that it's familiar because I recognise it, that it's all the more special because so few people understand it, and because aircrew did the most marvellous thing and I am able to say 'thanks boys'.
Andy.
By: - 23rd August 2005 at 17:00 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Well said Andy Mac, beautifully put.
Originally my interest started when I looked at a Spitfire. Not just glanced, but actually looked at one close up. Then I saw one fly past, pull up and (theres no other way for it) glide away into the evening sun, with the merlin fading away. I actually think I fell in love with that merlin before the aircraft. This was about 4 years ago, and we had just started doing World War two in history. I just found it so interesting (excuse the horrible impact of those words) that in so short a time ago, the world was in conflict. Then the Battle of Britain was taught in detail, and everything hit home to me. I realised that people DIED in those Spitfires, Hurricanes and all the other aircraft. I started becoming interested in aviation in general, and started really researching the Second World War in my own time, reading related books in our school library. I want to say thank you to all those men and women who died, and in my opinion, I can do this by knowing about them, their daily struggles, victories, and deaths. If I know of them, they will not be forgotten, and by God I promise you all now, when I have my own children, they too will know of the sacrifices that were made so they could live in an unopressed society. I owe it to them all.
BARNOWL
By: - 23rd August 2005 at 17:56 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Agreed Barnowl !
By: - 23rd August 2005 at 19:04 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
It's none of those things! Get out the dictionary and look up 'addiction' and 'disease', as I think this is where the problem lies! The more you have, the more you want. Collecting stuff, photos, models or whatever is like a drug, without the side-effects! :eek: It's a cross between nostalgia and wanting to record history to look back with fond memories.
I started at the age of 8 with a visit to Farnborough in 1958 and once you've seen 22 Hunters looping in formation, there was no turning back - hooked! :dev2: Build a few Airfix kits, collect a few reggies, start taking photos and you're IN ;) There's no turning back and you have to continue or otherwise you'll miss something along this trail of aviation history.
By: - 23rd August 2005 at 19:10 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I suppose my interest started a long while ago. I was born in 1954, a mere nine years after the end of the Second world War. The question that all lads of my age asked their fathers was "what did you do in the War dad?. Well my dear old Dad served under Montgomery in XXX Corp, but would never tell my slightly elder brother or I what he got up to, That question was answered by my Mother not long after he died, The Arnhem fiasco he was not proud of, the injuries sustained while escaping a burning Sherman tank...twice, No, Dad never metioned or spoke of these things.
And so to make up for what Dad didnt tell us, Mum told us her tales. Tales of being a teenager amongst the thousands of American airmen who were based at Nuthampstead, of watching the B-17s of the 398th BG take off, and watching them come home. Often damaged, sometimes on fire. So many stories, so many memories she held. Of her and her elder sisters being smuggled in to watch the Glenn Miller concert that he played there, the endless bicycles and jeeps that packed the town of Buntingford in the evenings, and of course, the general atmosphere of living close to what was then a huge wartime airfield.
The tales of the Americans seemed to lodge in my mind, I was intrigued when I saw for the first time on television the eternal classic "12 O clock High". I think that film affected me the most and gave me my interest in old airfields.
Often when walking around many of the former airfields I had a sense of needing to do something for the memory of the air and ground crews that inhabited these places, just walking the places left me feeling as if I owed something more than a visit. This is a feeling that has never gone away even though I have reached my half century.
The culmination resulted in the building of a permanent memorial to air and ground crews on the airfield at Hunsdon earlier this year. With a few other chaps who felt the same, we have succeeded in unveiling a memorial attended by many former Hunsdon veterans, with a few very distinguished people indeed. Branse Burbridge, top scoring night fighter pilot and Hugo Townsend, son of Peter to name but two.
But the thrill for me is to find a fragment of history on these former airfields, be it a small piece of mangled aluminium, a button found in the remnants of a long derelict Nissen hut, a part of an instrument in a ditch behind a former dispersal.
The buildings that still stand provide sometimes tantalising evidence of the Men, a name painted on a door as we found at Rivenhall airfield only three weeks ago 'Squadron Leader H.E Watson DFC'. Things like this make you wonder of the man himself, what happened to him, is he still alive but frail in his late eighties?.
Of the American Oak trees planted on the airfield when it was under USAAF use, when the saplings or acorns were planted, did the planter ever imagine they would stand proud 60 years on?.
When you do enter these buildings,or walk the diminished runways and taxyways they do have an 'air' about them, maybe as our interest is strong this manifests itself to us alone, a casual disinterested person would probably not be in receipt of that supposed aura.
By: - 23rd August 2005 at 20:58 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Thought provoking Kev!!
My love of historic aviation is an obsession. It is the only thing (apart from the Lord) that I can fully rely on. I see it as a crutch to help me when my life turned pooy and it helped keep me sane (well the jury is out on that!). My life is unfortunately taking a down turn (hopefully not as deep this time) but historic aviation will help me again.
It is fun being able to see aeroplanes fly, to smell, hear and feel them....they bring tears to my eyes when I see them and associate them with great things that have kept me free and safe.
It is fun to fly in aircraft, to smell the fantastic mix of oils, fuel, dope and polish that binds aircraft from Sopwith Camels to the mighty Hunter. To sit, in safer skies, in a B17 flying a 30min mission trying to get a link with the past. Or to fly fantastic aeros in a Hunter or slower aeros in a Harvard.
It is fun to jump out of an aircraft and come down safely under a 'hanky'....
It is fun being able to collect and restore parts and assemble them into a cockpit or display. To take something that is absolute rubbish and then through hours of work restore it, chase and get that ever so elusive part to complete it! To present it to your peers and chat excitedly about that aircraft type and then see it bring smiles to others.....fantastic!
It is fun to photograph aircraft...
It is fun to chat to veterans, it is also sad to remember those past and passing.
Sorry so long winded.....the short answer is that my life is all around aircraft and aviation, I still feel as excited as the 8 year old watching the Wright Flyer first clambour into the air or the next generation watching a Hurri despatching a 109 or the next generation boy watching Neville Duke take the world speed record along the south coast or the next generation boy watching the first flight of concorde or the next generation watching Space Ship 1 flying over at Oshkosh.
The shorter answer?.....aviation is WOW
By: - 23rd August 2005 at 22:07 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I get the same teary-eyed sensation when I watch the Battle of Britain (Battle in the Air) that I do when I hear My Hen Wlad Fyn Hadau- which is saying something for me. Its a sheer WOW factor that gets to me. Leaves me in tears every time.
BARNOWL
By: - 25th August 2005 at 14:24 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
My Thoughts
My interest in aviation has changed over the years. When I was in my teens, films like the Dambusters and The Battle of Britain had an enormous impact on me. This, combined with activities such as reading Commando comics, building model kits and seeing a real Spitfire one day really put the hook into me. I was partially driven by sentimentality, which is not suprising as I was an impressionable teenager who thrived on the books from WWII. I mused at one stage that I had been born in the wrong era, and that I should have been around in WWII (those youthful hormones, I think).
But as I grew older my outlook and drive towards old aircraft, and the sentimentality attached to it, changed. I became aware that some aircrew, having endured the unendurable, wanted nothing more to do with re-living what they had been through. And in more recent years, accounts of war fighting have been published which put a different, ugly, and some might say more realistic slant on things. One such book that made a great impression me is ‘Clouds of Fear’ by Roger Hall DFC. The author had a nervous breakdown and had to leave the front line after participating in the Battle of Britain. That was a wake up call to me. I recently read ‘Rear Gunner Pathfinders’ by Ron Smith DFC. His accounts of the sights he witnessed while bombing over Germany, again, give one pause for thought on the futility of war. The author was something of a philosopher, and would take to spending time alone in thought when on leave – relationships with anyone but his crew mates were too much too deal with.
In recent years I have become more focussed on the problems and continued suffering of peoples worldwide, and, while owing a debt of gratitude to those who fought for my freedom, I personally like to place the great battles of WWII (which occurred now over 60 years ago) in context alongside the many other battles for freedom which have taken place around the globe before and since. How much emphasis is placed today on the millions who died in The Great War, and further back into the 19th Century? The answer of course is that we remember ALL those who have given their lives for freedom throughout history. However, I think that the sacrifices of WWII have a special place for many of us, perhaps because the machinery used in that conflict is of particular fascination, and because of the links of family who fought and sometimes died (I lost a grandfather on D-Day in a tank).
For me, the sight and sound of a Lancaster is still as fascinating as it was when I was a teenager. But the romance that I used to attach to machines of death and destruction (and that is what warplanes are) has long gone. I enjoy them for their aesthetic beauty, as well as being able to marvel at them as fantastic engineering achievements created in a time of desperation and hardship.
By: - 26th August 2005 at 00:41 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Well for me it's Duxford and OW
You have no idea what it is like living 12,000 miles away (yes I still prefer miles) and wanting to be there in the UK at all the shows and visiting all the sites and museums - I must be one sick Australian - I would LOVE to live in Blighty.
That is why I am so passionate about Dux and the systematic destruction of its character and ambience over the past 15 years - it still make me tingle standing there just after dawn with a light mistclinging to the grass- staring accross the airfield at the flightline at the promise of the slumbering Warbirds, knowing whats in store and imagining what it must have been like 60+ years ago. I look at the old hangers and building and imagine the wartime buzz of activity. Then I get jolted out of all of this by that bloody ugly Yank aircraft funeral home and the blossomingly atrocious "super Dud Hanger" thing at the other end - Ok it's all done now but the future planning for the site should come back to reality and stop building all of these tombstones to Architectural Egocentric stupidity.
I will always go to Duxford - I will always enjoy it and I will always have an opinion but if you want the best environment for the future look to OW as an (admitidly smaller) example of maintaing the ambience whilst looking to the future.
Regards
john p
By: - 26th August 2005 at 16:54 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
My inerest in historic aviation is because I was a part of it. It was the most exciting period of my life. At my age, I tend to forget many things, but I surely remember a great many details of my flying experiences, both combat and non combat. I still go to my yearly group reunions, even though the number of attendees are decreasing each year.
By: - 3rd September 2005 at 17:02 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
As child of the sixties myself, Seafuryfans first paragraph says it all for me,but undoubtedly seeing the Battle of Britain on the big screen (and they were really big screens then) was what started it all off for me. At first it was really just the planes I was interested in but as I grew older and started to read the biographies,the human aspect became more important. My work takes me into peoples homes and I would always be on the lookout for signs of service in the RAF.On occaision I would comment on the person in the photo, only to find the husband/brother had been killed. Luckily the people would like to talk to someone who showed an interest and I would often leave the job far later than I had planned.When my eldest son got to the age of some of the lads who flew, this further brought home the sacrifices that generation made, believe me when you have children war takes on a different aspect.Some people say how can you feel nostalgia for a period when you weren't even born,as many of you know, you can.Its an interest thats turned into an obsession, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
By: - 3rd September 2005 at 19:41 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Well when i was younger the only books around to read were mostly my dads, 'weapons of war' series, more like booklets, i think they were called. They had great illustrations and photos and so that got me hooked. Also watching 'Battle of Britain' as well, i love it when the Heinkel 111 crashes into the sea and the battle of britain music starts up with the Spitfires flying about, magic! Also watching Memphis Belle from the late 1980's, brilliant film. I also visited Duxford, in fact its probably my earliest memory.
I also plan to join the RAF in a year or two, but thats mostly because of films like BoB
By: - 3rd September 2005 at 20:12 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Also watching 'Battle of Britain' as well, i love it when the Heinkel 111 crashes into the sea and the battle of britain music starts up with the Spitfires flying about, magic!
It is simply not possible for me to agree with you more on that.
BARNOWL
By: - 3rd September 2005 at 20:37 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Oh, almost forgot. I used to be an Air Cadet too, getting too fly was fantastic, the only time i've been in an aircraft and not actually flown it was in the two Nimrods, that was great! Apart from that, the Air Cadets actually dampened down my aviation spirit, but since i left it's been growing even more!
By: - 3rd September 2005 at 22:11 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I visited my first airshow at eight years old,church fenton.Replenished with
warm pop and chicken sandwiches,dads passion started to wear off,years later many air shows from all over the country under our belts,we sat at the crash gate at binbrook drinking warm pop and laughing.That was the last time i saw him laugh and the last time we realy talked.Dad died the next day,i dident fall out of love with my passion it just became too painful.I still looked up at whatever was screaming past instead of wishing i was there, i found my self wishing for the past.
Now thirteen years later i make tentative forays back into my passion ,out of touch not to say the least, but the pain has gone.When on the airfields the old ghost's are still there but with one other.I now have two sons of my own so the cycle starts again.
By: - 3rd September 2005 at 22:16 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I visited my first airshow at eight years old,church fenton.Replenished with
warm pop and chicken sandwiches,dads passion started to wear off,years later many air shows from all over the country under our belts,we sat at the crash gate at binbrook drinking warm pop and laughing.That was the last time i saw him laugh and the last time we realy talked.Dad died the next day,i dident fall out of love with my passion it just became too painful.I still looked up at whatever was screaming past instead of wishing i was there, i found my self wishing for the past.
Now thirteen years later i make tentative forays back into my passion ,out of touch not to say the least, but the pain has gone.When on the airfields the old ghost's are still there but with one other.I now have two sons of my own so the cycle starts again.
That was from the heart, well said ;)
By: - 4th September 2005 at 03:02 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I guess I would descibe myself as an enthusiast, researcher, historian, photographer, modeller, ex-RNZAF, book collector and sentamental fool when it comes to me passion for historic aviation
My interest in and devotion to the history of New Zealand military aviation has continued to grow, and will so for a long time to come. It is my main interest, the RNZAF, and researching it as I have been, and being able to record the stories I have that no-one else has done, gives me immense satisfaction. I am of course interested in other areas of aviation - mainly other WWII Air Forces and types, but for me nothing will eclipse the feelings I have for the history of New Zealanders in the WWII air forces.
Yes, Duxford is amazing. But for me, the number one airfield was Wigram. Not just because I lived there for two and a half years, or that the RNZAF Museum is situated there, but having read of and been told so many tales of that station, NZ's most important military aviation site, I find an amazing feeling every time I read or hear the word Wigram. When I lived there in 1991-93 that the place was very little changed at all from 1941-43, I felt I was living in an amazing time capsule. I could envisgae every story because I truly knew the place. I used to see many veterans who'd returned to the base to see the museum, who were wandering round, the memories flooding back to them.
It is very painful to think now what has become of that incredibly important site. The greed of the few have taken away the tangible link to the memories of many tens of thousands of people for whom that place was home, whatever era they lived there.
Hobsonville for me also held the ghosts of many a Catalina, Walrus, Sunderland and perhaps even a Cutty Sark moored in the stream. And its hangars, then with helicopters when I lived there, still seemed to me to need the return of Oxfords, Vincents and Harvards... sadly this base will also soon be gone.
Why can others not see the significance of these historical sites as we do? Are they not as important as some old Norman castle, or some Maori Pa site? Yes, perhaps moreso! But the majority simply think "land, build houses, make money". It's pathetic.
As for collecting, I have experienced the occasional thrill when winning issues of RNZAF Contact magazine on auction. For me, with these old wartime magazines, it is not just the interesting stories, articles and photos inside that are special, but also the thought of who's hands this issue has passed through to get to me. Perhaps it had been passed around a crew room on a bomber squadron at Whenuapai before they moved up to the Pacific, or the Sgts Mess on a small station somewhere, or it was lovingly cherished by a boy who was then in the ATC and aspired to be in the RNZAF... I'll never know who of course, but I do wonder what journey each issue has made and where it has been before it reached me.
We all know just what a fantastic repository of information this forum is and the joy we all get from helping each other and sharing in our knowledge.
Absolutely. No. 1 forum on the web, hands down!
Or is it the companionship and undoubted sense of community this forum engenders? Steve’s passing showed just how much of an impact an internet community such as this can have on our lives. How many of us have spent years attending airshows and museums and never seen a face we recognise? Now it’s hard to go anywhere without bumping into a friendly face.
Though in these far distant lands it's not so easy to meet up with people - I get to so few airshows these days as it is too - but even for me the forum provides so much more than simply reading the FlyPast magazine ever could. Not just the friendships, but the opportunity to learn so much more. Isn't it amazing, simply astounding, how ten years ago we'd buy a magazine, read an article, and be left with unanswered questions that you'd always wonder about forever more. Nowadays those questions that pop up are usually answered within minutes on the forum, and often by people involved in the story somehow. Fantastic.
For me, being involved with the veterans is the pinacle that I have so far reached - having gone through the progressive stages from childhood to adulthood of making models,reading about planes, seeing planes at airshows, going to museums, reading about pilots, and then joining the RNZAF and getting involved in historic aviation through that service, nothing has meant more than the chance to meet and discuss and ask things with the men and women themselves who were there. I spent almost every Sunday afternoon I had at Wigram museum, not just because I loved looking at the exhibits, but because I struck up great friendships with the volunteer guides who were all WWII veterans.
I went for a considerable period away from such discussions with veterans as life moved on, till ten years later in 2003 I began my research into the Cambridge air force people (see my website) and I suddenly remembered how fulfilling it was to be able to ask, discuss and thank. I have since then interviewed many veterans, and my interest of just Cambridge people has now been expanded with my latest project.
In that I have been interviewing veterans of the General Reconnaissance and Bomber Reconnaissance squadrons of the RNZAF. These squadrons, with their Vincents, Baffins, Vildebeests, Hudsons, Singapores, Rapides, Express's, and Venturas have held a fascination with me for years and I've loved reading about them. They were the key defence to NZ in the early days of the war, and a key part of the Allied offensive in the Pacific. Recently I decided to get off my chuff and do something more personal and tangible about it, rather than wish more had been written. I decided to track down veterans and record their stories myself. So far it has been most fulfilling, I have been learning a huge amount that has never been recorded, I have made many new friends, and I have been invited to their last ever reunion in November which will be amazing. I now wish I'd started this ten years ago when I first thought about doing it. What I am recording is, I feel, important not just to satisfy my own curiosity but also in the nation's interest. I fully intend to try to get a book written and published out of this material. In fact, at the moment this has eclipsed my Cambridge research which many of you know is very dear to me too.
Of all things to do with this passion, one of the proudest moments of my life was in November 13th 2004 when we held the reunion I organised for Cambridge people who were in the RNZAF. The place was packed, people had come from far and wide, and they were all thrilled to be remembered. When the plaque I had designed was unveiled and the ceremony undertaken by the RNZAF padre was going on, I could have burst with pride. Now every time I walk through town I go past the plaque to check on it, under its tree in Jubilee Gardens next to the Town Hall and Cenotaph, and I stop and reflect, thinking about the faces of the veterans gathered there that day, and the faces of those who's names are on the nearby memorial, as the hussle and busstle of life goes on around me. That, for me, pretty much somes it up.
By: - 4th September 2005 at 09:40 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I suppose my interest started a long while ago. I was born in 1954, a mere nine years after the end of the Second world War. The question that all lads of my age asked their fathers was "what did you do in the War dad?. Well my dear old Dad served under Montgomery in XXX Corp, but would never tell my slightly elder brother or I what he got up to, That question was answered by my Mother not long after he died, The Arnhem fiasco he was not proud of, the injuries sustained while escaping a burning Sherman tank...twice, No, Dad never metioned or spoke of these things.
By coincidence, my father served under Montgomery in XXX Corps, the difference was that he never stopped talking about his experiences. He always used to ridicule the idea that modern troops need counselling, however, I think that considering some of the horrors he experienced, particularly during the Arnhem campaign, that telling the tales were his own form of counselling.
Since he died in January it has left a massive hole in my life. As I often report, we get a lot of flybys here from Duxford a/c, I would be instantly on the phone to tell him what had gone past, but I can't do this anymore. He always wanted to be in the RAF rather than the Royal Artillery, his cousin Noel won the DFC flying Blenheims, he tried to sign up as a glider pilot but the powers that be decided he was too valuable as an artillery spotter.
He was always an aviation fanatic, even during the war, I have his war diaries which I would like to get into a publishable state but can't get my head around this yet.
I remember a difference of opinion between him and my ex wife's late father who fought at Alamein and Italy, he thought that an interest in a/c at the time was pretty pointless to the PBI, however my father said it was a sad B####r who didn't know who was going to shoot at you.
When I was a kid, we didn't have much money, but the old man had a tandem, I used to sit on a little seat in the middle with my older brother on the back. He used to take us on tours of airfields round Nottinghamshire, Hucknall was only a few miles away so we witnessed the wonders of the Flying Bedstead, then Langar, a RCAAF base followed by a Shackleton repair centre, then deserted airfields such as Bottesford, he always managed to talk his way in to these places.
Then we had the annual Hucknall and BOB airshows, that started with Newton and ended up going further afield to places like Finningley, travelling there on the back of his moped.
Thats how my interest in aviation started, it was an advantage living only a few miles from Hucknall and seeing all the wierd and wonderful experiments of the 50's and 60's, then my brother started making Airfix kits to a very high standard when they first came out and accumulated a lot of literature during this time.
I'm lucky to be living in an area where warbird flybyes are pretty common place, the slightest sound of aero engines and the house empties.
The last airshow my dad went to was the Duxford D-Day show last year, he was treated like a hero, justly so, and even appeared on GMTV, a fitting last show, we all miss him badly.
Posts: 6,968
By: kev35 - 23rd August 2005 at 11:45
Many of us here are connected with Historic Aviation in some way, be it as author, researcher, engineer, volunteer, marshaller, photographer, modeller, as a Cadet or Officer in the ATC or in the RAF itself or just in the capacity we all share, that of the eternal enthusiast or anorak. (Robbo once described my front room as a shrine to anorakdom.)
My question is how do you feel about your hobby/interest? Many of you will know I am very sentimental about my interest, but how does your interest affect you?
Is it an emotional factor which drives you? Maybe the commemoration of those who have gone before, such as Mark’s work with Babe Haddon, Johnny Wiseman and Francois de Spirlet or Ian’s commemoration of Bernhard Scheidhauer et al?
Is it all encompassing like Becka’s work at the IWM, or Bruce at the DH Museum or any of the countless volunteers at Museums around the Country? Is it the actual physical work on an airframe, the joy and satisfaction of knowing that when you see a certain airframe in the air, it is there because you play a part in its restoration or care? Or in the case of the MAM Canberra seeing its electrical systems restored to health? Or Steve Young’s joy at refurbishing a set of cowling gills for a (his) Beaufighter?
Do you feel a special resonance with a particular airfield or site? Some say Duxford is alive in more than one sense. How do you feel when you set foot in an abandoned watch office? Or see a faded inscription on a derelict airfield building? How do the Obituaries of those ‘gentle heroes’ who leave this world affect you?
Is it the thrill of obtaining some long cherished item from an auction site or an aero jumble? The thrill of an airshow or time spent lost in a Museum? Or is it the quest for knowledge and understanding? We all know just what a fantastic repository of information this forum is and the joy we all get from helping each other and sharing in our knowledge.
Or is it the companionship and undoubted sense of community this forum engenders? Steve’s passing showed just how much of an impact an internet community such as this can have on our lives. How many of us have spent years attending airshows and museums and never seen a face we recognise? Now it’s hard to go anywhere without bumping into a friendly face.
Maybe it’s the Veterans, the real reason we are all now able to enjoy the interest we share? Is it that some of us feel a sense of debt which we need to repay?
So, what is it? What is it that makes you feel the way you do about this interest of ours? What aspect of this multi-faceted entity of Historic Aviation is it that inspires you, leaves you ‘financially challenged’ and which probably exasperates your long suffering family and friends?
Regards,
kev35