My fascination with planes started when I was young, living across Flushing Bay from New York’s La Guardia Airport in the tiny Queens town of College Point. From my third floor apartment window I could see planes taking off and landing all day, back when 727s ruled the American skies, and sister three-holers like the L-1011 and DC-10 were always in my view on LGA’s short runways as well. I didn’t know how good I had it back then.
Looking back, I wish I had a camera.
I did have binoculars, however. And a notebook. My father had taken me to the library and I kept taking out the same book that showed diagrams of airliners, which is how I learned to identify them when I was 5. With this, before I knew planespotting even existed, I was writing down logs of each aircraft movement; aircraft, airline, time and runway. I didn’t know about registrations or using a scanner to get flight numbers, but gimme a break, I was spotting!
Looking back, I’d kill to have that notebook, or the library book that had that diagram. I’ve actually visited several local libraries over the past few years and spent hours Googling to see if I could find it (tall hardcover book, with the title “Aircraft” or Airplanes”. Vague enough, huh?).
Days after turning 11, I laid in my bed at night, listening to people in front of my building argue over a parking space. The sky suddenly lit up momentarily, and 20 minutes later I heard my parents discussing the news bulletins that were appearing on TV. USAir Flight 405 had crashed on takeoff, killing 34 people. That lit sky had been the fireball of the stalled aircraft slamming into the ground before coming to a stop inverted in the bay.
Looking back, I never would have thought that I would later work in the airline industry for a living, studying crashes like Flight 405 to learn about de-icing procedures, holdover times, and the aerodynamics of winter operations, doing my own part to help make sure that such crashes don’t happen.
Like many children, I had a couple movies that I would watch over and over…and over…and over. One of them was The Final Countdown, a story of a modern (“modern” being in the early 1980s) aircraft carrier being sent back in time to face the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Aside from the sound of the tape on the VHS cassette groaning to me “please don’t play me again,” I became familiar with the sounds of the military aircraft in the movie, among them the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zeros.
With that sound being saved in my head, I recall that almost annually in the late Summers as a child, I would hear a propeller noise outside that sounded exactly like the Zeros in the movie, and running to look outside I would see a formation of World War 2 style aircraft zipping around overhead. It almost scared me because I associated that sound with enemy attack.
Looking back, I learned that the “annual event” was LGA Kids’ Day, which I attend each year in September these days, and the aircraft I saw were the Skytypers based out of Republic Airport that were regular visitors to the event. The Skytypers fly the old T-6 Texan, which is the aircraft type that is commonly modified to look exactly like the very rare Mitsubishi Zeros, which is they had done in The Final Countdown. So yeah, I was indeed hearing the same sound from the movie. Avgeek high five!
With all of that, my first time flying was at the age of 9 on a trip with my family to Alberquerque, New Mexico. I flew Continental (meatball!) with a connection in Houston, I believe flying DC-9s on all legs. Before getting on that connecting flight, an airline employee came up to me on the jetbridge with a clipboard of some type and told me to bring it into the cockpit, and to tell the Captain “No ice”. The Captain laughed when I handed it over and gave me a tour of the flight deck, and I was cocky with him as he showed me the movements of the yoke, “Yeah, I know how it works,” I said like the little brat that I was (by kay at dh inc). He let me say hi to my parents on the PA system and I went back to my seat with a an ear-to-ear smile. A major experience in my growing aviation passion.
Looking back, obviously, that was the mechanic giving me the maintenance logbook, along with a joke to the pilot that there was shockingly no ice on the aircraft…in the middle of summer in Houston.
Ten years ago, I was 22 years old, checking IDs at doors and patroling dance floors of various bars and clubs around New York City for a living. I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew that in between drinking beer, meeting girls and lifting weights, that I loved planes. My free time was spent hanging out at the airport with new planespotter friends I had met through this amazing hobby.
Looking back, I never would have thought that within a few months I would start an email newsletter which would lead to a website that would grow to what it is today. I never would have thought that a job or two later I’d be working in the airline industry, traveling to dozens of countries, working hands-on with airplanes bringing our nation’s soldiers to and from war. I didn’t know I would eventaully become a dispatcher, earning a respectable salary and stumbling upon this thing called a “career”.
Looking back, I now know that the same overhead airplanes whose smokey black soot gave me respiratory issues as a child would later save my life. If not for that La Guardia window view, I would likely be standing at the door to some Downtown bar both delivering and receiving the occassional ass beating from a drunk, probably with my big mouth getting me stabbed or shot.
Looking back, I know how enriched my life has been and how very lucky I am to have traveled to where I have, done what I have done, and seen the things I’ve seen, all thanks to aviation. Most valuable of all has been the friendships I’ve formed with so many who play huge roles in both my aviation and non-aviation lives alike. Because of aviation, I’d rather live the life I’ve lived than win the lottery, because I feel I’ve already won it 10 times over.
My story is of but one person out of so many thousands of aviation enthusiasts whose lives have been so greatly influenced by the joys and experiences brought to them through our passion for these amazing machines that take to the sky. I hope all enthusiasts everywhere take a moment to look back at their own story, and be prepared to use it the next time people look at us with that quizzical look, wondering why our hearts are among the clouds.
Phil Derner founded NYCAviation in 2003. A lifetime aviation enthusiast that grew up across the water from La Guardia Airport, Phil has a background in online advertising and airline experience as a loadmaster, operations controller and flight dispatcher. You can reach him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter at @phildernerjr.