> at 3 1/2. I was sitting between my older brother and sister, ages 7 and 6 respectively, in the back seat of a Stinson Station Wagon airplane in Dec 1957.
heheh I learned to fly before I was 3. My mom was a CFI and she would let me sit in the front of the J3 Cub and use the stick. I was tall enough to reach the rudder pedals and see out. Eventually I could do everything but prop start. Later the flying club got a Cessna 172 with an electric start and I guess I became truly dangerous, but my parents moved to Austin to go to graduate school, sold the planes, and I went off to boring all-day kindergarten right away. However I had also learned to drive the VW, whenever I had a chance and a quarter I would drive to the dime store and get candy. One rich day I loaded up my friends in the VW and we went to Swedish Smorgasbord together.
Computer games can unleash a lot of early potential. I recall stumbling across the toddlers playing networked BarneyDoom in teams when I went to pick up from at-home daycare...
I was a slow growing kid it seemed, eventually topping a 1/4” shy of 6’2” at 19. I was 5’4” starting high school at 14, still using a pillow behind my back, to reach rudder pedals in the Cessna 310 my dad was partners in. (He was a charter pilot and CFII-MEL; as well as a farmer).
I was quite the pest at 5, in the barnyard, moving tractors around for no particular reason. I had to put my back against the seat frame to be able to press the clutch down on the Oliver 88. The John Deere 730 was easier because of the hand clutch.