Nathan Preiss, Infatuated with flyingBy Mark Preiss It all started at the age of around 3/4. Nathan was always fascinated with planes. We flew down to George and that, well, that was the start of what we thought was just a phase, but he became infatuated with aircraft: - but not just the planes, he wanted to fly them.     He would watch endless YouTube videos of cockpit views of pilots taking off and landing. He would tell Oom Fanie Bezuidenhout, our neighbour who owns a Jodel based at Springs Airfield, everything he had learnt about planes and how to fly them every opportunity he got.    We then visited the SAA museum and that was it, he wanted to fly Boeing 747's and Airbus A380's: - nothing else.  Oom Fanie then gave him some seats from an old Nation-wide aircraft. He would send hours pretending to fly to different destinations.  Then Oom Fanie gave him some lapels as well as some Mango wings and this is where the pilot outfit came from. He had to have long black pants, a white shirt and a black tie. "Pilots always look smart" he said. The phase never went away and he just became more and more infatuated with becoming a pilot. He will sit and watch planes taking off and landing, and would mention the airlines name as well as the type of plane. His favourite plane is, of course, SAA 747 Lebombo, which also makes him very sad as she will not fly again.    Then Fanie organized the surprise flight over the weekend in Jan Hatting's Vans RV6 which is way different than any Nathan, now nine years old, had flown in before. Needless to say it is all that he talked about for days! And now we start saving to pay for his PPL once he was old enough to do it! And then onto attaining his CPL. www.youtube.com/channel/UCCuRVZAGodT6sztTeXBGeMw and subscribe to our YouTube channel  |
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