From a very young age all I wanted to do was be a fast jet pilot and I still do to this day!  I always wondered what it was that started it all; what was the thing that put it in my head?

Whilst being nostalgic on YouTube and watching the intros to cartoons I used to watch I found it!

The most badass cartoon EVER! Swat Kats!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_AdxJWFUh4

It gives me goosebumps it's so cool! Also explains why I've always loved F-14s to!

So what about everyone else? Why are you all here? What was your inspiration?

After watching C-130's and 747's make touch and go's and landings over my house, as well as t-15's and several other aircraft, then after I went to aviation challenge, I just had to get a flight sim, always loved the F-18 afterwards

In July 1949 when I was six years old my Dad took me to the Daily Express Air Pageant at the old Gatwick Airport. Since then I've been fascinated by anything that flies. He didn't know what he'd started.

I found a little clip of the show. http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist/BHC_RTV/1949/07/28/BGU411160046/?a=1&s=*&v=0

I occasionally flew an Auster Aiglet spotter plane whilst in the British Army in 1955 stationed in Germany after the War, but when I was demobbed shortly after, took little further interest in aircraft, until using my Sinclair Spectrum, etc, Computers in 1980 onwards, with its various aeroplane and helicopter games/simulators, I found them fun!
Then with the advent of my home-built "PC" Desktop/Tower Computer, and Windows OS in 1995, I found Flight Unlimited I/II/III followed by Fly!, Pro Pilot/2, Longbow, Gunship, etc, etc,....
...finally by MS FS '98.....then I was really hooked!
They were quickly followed by FS 2000, FS 2002, FS 2004 CFS 2/3, and FSX immediately they were released in England!
For the past 14? years, I have been flying the Sims every single day, exploring the whole world, (mostly California.. ...), for the cost of a few Pennies in the Electric Meter.. ...!
I have found lots of on-line Flight Sim Chums over that period, and learned lots about the World around me, using the Flight Sims, and Maps, and Wikipedia...
...and also learned how to fly Aeroplanes... ...including the occasional REAL ONE!

Its lots of fun, and I thoroughly enjoy it, every day*... ...!

Paul...I have Control... ...!

* What is it like, outside, in the Real world?... .... ...!

When I was a very small boy around 5 or so, my mother worked as a secretary for a small local aviation company, the rest is history

Matt

Well when I was about 5 years old me and my family went down to Pensacola Naval Museum,I went in and looked at the whole museum and when we got to the part of it with the Blue Angels hanging on the cieling I just fell in love with flying.When I was 13 I took my first flight in a small plane,I was even more in love with flying!
Now I'm 16 and I love flying still!

I just liked planes, but this helped: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119595/

The Magic of Flight IMAX.  It was really cool.

As I grew up I realized I was pretty good at math and science, and I really liked airplanes, so I put 2 and 2 together and became an aerospace engineer.

Aged 4 moving to NY from dreary England and going on Laker Airways and managing to blag two trips to the cockpit!
I've still got the "Pilot Badge" given to young guests in the "office". I was hooked!
Then in NY I had my first helicopter flight in a Bell Jet Ranger and I remember being in the front seat (mum in the back with the peasants) and flying between sky scrapers (this has been banned now, sensibly) and loving it
The final piece of the jigsaw came as an air cadet and going up on my first Air Experience Flight in a Chipmunk and taking control and doing loops and stall turns myself with a senior RAF pilot making certain I didn't cream in. We weren't supposed to do this on the first flight I then spent every weekend I could flying with the cadets. I still have a very special place in my heart for the Chippie