From a very early age Neil Armstrong was fascinated with flight. He was playing with toy airplanes at 3, and by the time he was 5 or 6 Armstrong went on his first airplane ride in a Ford Tri-Motor. By 8 or 9 he said he was building model airplanes out of balsa wood. And by the time he was 15 he had saved enough money working at a drug store to begin taking flying lessons at the small airport near his home in Wapakoneta, Ohio.
Armstrong’s first lessons were in an Aeronca Champ, a two-seat airplane with a 65-horsepower engine. His career as a test pilot began at the age of 16, sort of. With his student pilot license in hand, he started flying small airplanes at the airport after the engines had been overhauled by the local mechanic.
via Wired
Photo of Neil Armstrong in cockpit of X-15: NASA
