§ 1. Believe it or not, I used to read Flight International every week from the age of eight onwards — my father, an aviation engineer, encouraged my early passion for planes but I never thought that one day I would be working on it as a journalist.
§ 2. Flight International is read by anyone with an interest in aviation. From pilots to manufacturers, technicians to air vice marshals, all are readers looking for the latest news in this sector. As news editor, I'm responsible for deciding what appears on the 20 news pages we produce each week. Aviation is one of the few truly global industries and we have a team of reporters around the world. When I left school, my original plan was to become an engineer. I studied aeronautical engineering at university but found the course rather unsatisfactory. At the time there was a huge recession on with few jobs going, and I was forced to look round for other options. I actually wrote to Flight and asked for a job. The then deputy editor advised me to do a course in journalism which had just been set up, which is what I did.
§ 3. I found the course useful not so much because it gave me a pretty good basic grounding in journalism, but mainly because it focused on several workplacements, which I was able to do at Flight. I wrote a few pieces and got my face known at the magazine. When the course finished there were no jobs available on Flight so I went off and worked for an aviation newsletter. After a year or so the technical reporter at Flight moved to another job and I was in. The great thing for me about working here has been the chance to ask people questions about something I'm genuinely interested in, and to combine it with my other passion, travel. After a couple of years I was offered a job in Munich in Germany,
§ 4. It was fantastic timing as the aviation industry in eastern Europe was just opening up and I got to report on it and see the region. From there I went to Singapore, which again was an extraordinary experience. I got to fly over the Far East, visiting factories, meeting fascinating people and doing interviews, and to be honest I would have been happy to stay there a bit longer.
§ 5. However, jobs like this don't come up very often — the last news editor stayed ten years - and so when I was offered it, I couldn't really say no. Although I'm much more office-based now, I still go to the big air shows. In some ways I was getting a bit tired of living out of a suitcase, although I still get a thrill when I take my seat on a new plane for the first time. A37. Why did the writer read Flight International when he was a child?
