What got you interested in aviation?

[Cap'n Wannabe]

I got my Airfix Stuka from Anderson's newsagent on Holmes Rd (between Darling and Bowen Sts), 4 shillings and 9 pence. When that shop closed I used to buy kits from Sims Sports Store in Puckle St

so many modellers come from those parts.. must be something in the water

I remember Sims - all the models were upstairs. Puckle St Newsagency had the odd kit as well....they were phasing them out when I had a part-time job there, so I was given a couple for free. Coles had the Revell 1/72 kits in the plastic bags, and later had Arii/Otaki and Idea kits. Toyworld in Pratt St had a huge range, and I like to think I got one kid into models when I helped a lady with kit, paint and glue selection for her son.
Then, of course, there was PJ's.....on the wrong side of the tracks

[oz rb fan]

my dad...he worked at GAF building mirages when i was little....he later built nomads and ikra's...and few other things(he built avon sabres before i was born...he's ex CAC as well)..modeling the first i can remember building is an old 1/72 scale aoshima serian.

[Adam the Akrodude]

Paul, you had no hope - aviation is fused, welded & riveted into your genes!

I guess I had no hope as well in this regard. My father started his career as a apprentice instrument builder with Sperry (attitude indicators, directional gyro's, turn & bank instruments) at the end of WW2 as a teenager. He did his National Service in the RAF after the war as a instrument fitter based at a Avro York Squadron somewhere up in Scotland. He was in the RAF working on Yorks during the Berlin Airlift. Dad was a kid during the Battle of Britain, so we were enthralled as kids hearing his adventures of this time and being a evacuee during the Blitz later. He and his mates used to collect bomb splinters and the nose cones from AA shells. The BoB movie was a all time family fav and we always watched it every time it came on TV - I still do even though I have the DVD. Dad saved and bought himself a racer bike and he and a mate cycled all over England. They once rode down to the Hawker works (wherever that was) and sneaked a peek at the Typhoon and Tempest prototypes before being chased away by a guard shoving a 303 in their faces. He was down some beach once when a Bf-110 strafed a lighthouse and the spent cannon shell casings were raining down on the beach as it flew over. Near their house was a Bofors AA gun, which shook and cracked their 2up/2 down terrace house in Chiswick during the "Battle".

Amazing stories for my brother and I from a amazing time.