I was a kid. Younger than 10.
My dad’s friend had a PPL, owned a low wing single GA plane, and also had built his own yoke and rudder, with a throttle lever, and trim buttons for FS4.
He would take is up in the plane and I would play FS4 at his place as well as at home but with a basic joystick, no rudder, and keyboard for throttle input.
I got to fly a cessna (with help) at age six and my dad and I made regular trips to the airport to watch planes take off and land and listen to the aircraft radio frequencies when I was growing up. The first flight sim I ever played was in an arcade called “Red Baron” where you shoot down other biplanes and balloons. I got into PC simming with WWII aircraft fighting sims in the early 90s (Aces over the Pacific and Aces over Europe) and then Falcon 4.0 and Microsoft Flight Sim. Due to other hobbies and life priorities, I took a long break and hadn’t flown any aircraft sims for a long time until MSFS 2020 came out. I have been enjoying all of the variety of content available and I’m currently working through the bush flights (both native and FS Academy) as time permits.
Aviation - Age 2, 1949
Simming - The “Blue Boat” in Army Flight School, 1968
MS Flight Sim and any others I could find, 1985 (I used MS Flight Sim to help prepare for my annual U.S. Army Aviation written exams.)
So I guess I have always been hooked.
I was something like 13 years old, in 1984 on Amstrard CPC 464 with the game “Mission delta”.
My first FS was FSII on Atari ST (1986).
As far as i remember, i always been interested by aviation.
Off Topic…
(me, not @OctupleElm15084 )
I wish there were more FI’s like this. Both in the wild and right here on this forum, I have met way too many PPL’s that have 300-500 hours after years of flying. Always scares me when they describe themselves as, “been flying for ten years”. No you’ve been licensed for ten years. You’ve been flying for less than 20 DAYS! Most babies are still breast feeding at that point, not offering advice on parenting.
On Topic…
Sim flying has started a lot of careers and a lot of career pilots have picked up simulators for everything from fun to self training/practice. (mostly fun) I think I had been flying commercially for about 10 years (not 20 days worth) when Artwick’s Simulator came out. I remember going to the Bay and buying a Commodore 64 and Flight Sim together. I think the longest I ever went without powering up one version of FS or another would be maybe a month or two.
that’s depends what you call piloting. Programming a MCDU and let the aircraft doing the job from taking off to landing, i don’t really call this piloting. it’s more programming. On a flight of 8H, how many minutes do they touch commands ?..i trust more a pilote with 1000h in GA aircraft than an pilote with 4000h in an airliner.
Are you serious?
8 hours of personal responsibility for a few hundred lives. Attention to detail, systems management, crew management, etc. Do you really think the pilot hops into the seat, pushes a couple buttons and then plays with his facebook farm for the next 8 hours?
You must have missed the part where I said “in ten years”. 1000 hours in a year is a relatively experienced pilot. 50 hours per year, is not.
This is so far off topic its stupid, but there is no way …
I really hope you were being tongue in cheek…
I apologize to everyone else in the thread for allowing myself to get off topic.
I’ve been interested in aviation as long as I can remember (that is way more than a half-century!) and can remember going to Washington National Airport to watch the DC-3 and DC-6 take off. I worked at Dulles International prior to it’s opening and was a plane spotter there for years.
I flew control line model airplanes all thru junior and senior high school. I designed and built a number of special performance models. One of which I attached a small fire cracker (with a long - long fuse) to a tiny bottle of nitro fuel in the wing and flew it in circles till the flak got it - my most impressive flying experience!
In 1968 I tried to enroll in the United Airlines program that guaranteed college juniors and seniors a seat in their flight crew training program if one would get their private and instrument license prior to graduation. However, during the UA medical it was discovered I had some vision deficiencies (lazy eye easily corrected) and they then rescinded the offer.
I tried to buy a Malibu for my company business in the latter 1980s but my wife said she would divorce me and my business partner said he would never fly with me. So - that was the end of my serious attempt to be a pilot/owner.
My business required extensive travel and during the 1980 - 2000 time period I averaged 5-flights a week and spent 200-days a year living in hotels. I made two around the world trips using Northwest Airlines special “first class fare” available to their million mile members. As I recall I (really my clients) paid $7,000 for each of those trips, which took 3-months for one and 10-weeks for the other.
I began flying sims when Meigs Field was just a bunch of poorly coordinated pixels on a b/w CRT and have been an avid sim flyer since then (about 39-years now). I even took the sim with me on my sailboat when the wife and I left Seattle in 2000 to spend the next many years as full time cruisers.
The 4000 hour pilot probably has 1000+ hours in other planes in the first place, according to the CAA, so they meet both your criteria. 
If we are talking flight sims specifically, I would guess my first flight sim was Dambusters on the ZX Spectrum. I believe I was 12-13 when that was released.
zx zpecturm ! FPS should not be very high ! (my sim on Amstrad was not really better, 1 screen update every second, entirely programmed in Basic, we could break the runtime at anytime and enter into code)
9 years old. My older Brother Was always into aviation since I can walk.he inteosuced me to fs98 and from that moment I did Not want to play anything else. I always dreamed of a homecockpit but spent more time in tweaking fps in fsx than flying.when I heard that there will be a New sim, it was clear to me that I would need a strong pc. I ever since dreamed about having my own homecockpit. This childhood has now come true and I absolutely love it. Oh boy would i have been hyped If i knew back then lol. Btw my brother made the dream Real and now works at Lufthansa Technik in Frankfurt.something i can only dream of lol
As long as I can remember, posters on my bedroom wall , in the early 70,s cost sharing for a seat in back of cheeta out of elstree , won a ride on capital radio flying eye over London early 90,s my parents had a comp when 1st sim came out hooked! Took a good few years until I could afford a good enough computer to play now no kids still a mortgage and an understanding wife 10k in on current set up !! Keeps my head working and visit the world ! Now 59!
and doing lots of aircraft models (“Heller” trademark), mainly WWII aircrafts
I totally remember playing this. ACE for the C64 as well. Thought the graphics were pretty sweet!
My interest in aviation began at around age 8 or 9. Someone gave me some Airfix kits for Christmas, and after building those Spitfires and Hurricanes, I was hooked. I went into the Air Cadets in my early teens, and then over the decades took several stabs at getting my PPL, but various factors always stopped me completing it, although I did get to solo at least three aircraft types in the process. (Cessna 152, Robin HR200, Piper PA-28-181 Warrior).
Flight sim entered my life in 1987. I had an Amstrad computer, and I saw a game for the Harrier. Then in the same year I discovered Flight Sim v4, and bought it in 1988 when I moved from Scotland to Canada. I do not think hardly a day has gone by without flying the Microsoft flight sim series since then!
I was fortunate to turn my flight sim hobby into a business for about seven years. “Visually Incredible Panels” began in 1994, and soon became “The VIP Group.” Our CDs graced store shelves around the planet. It was a great experience, and opened many cockpit doors in the process. But, that was a long time ago, and both aviation in real life and flight simulation have been just hobbies for the last 20 years.
At 64, I now look back on half a lifetime of Microsoft flight simulation, and additionally great memories of taking to the real skies in such diverse types as Chipmunk, T6 Harvard, T34 Mentor, DC3 Dakota, L19 Electra, L188 Electra, B17 Flying Fortress, KC135 Stratotanker, and a large number of airliners and GA types as well. Aviation (whether real or simulated) is truly in my blood.
I second that. After I’d build them I cut them apart and refit them to other cutup models to make new and more interesting planes…But alas as is the fate of most models, eventually they were destroyed by fireworks in the end…
I remember 1 time 2 bottle rockets in the exhaust of a f-101 that was priceless but then thats another thread altogether isnt it. 
I only remember that girls to this time, were absolutely uninteresting. 
Just like some of my age (64) started making airfix models age 6 or 7 and have not stopped since.
At 18 I wanted to be a fighter pilot in the air force and went through preliminary assessment, but my eyesight was not good enough. Went on to a career I marketing.
Started simming with Bruce Artvig that became Microsoft flight simulator in the 80’, along with most of the other sims of that era. Very fond of Digital Integration Tornado. Been through all Msfs iterations ending with FSX. Never really fell for xplane though trying it several times. Thought that FSX was the end of the line, and became totally surprised and ecstatic when MSFS2020 was announced. Had not seen that coming. As a consequence I am VERY tolerant when it comes to bugs or or missing/lacking features. Dont mind waiting 2-3-5 years for the sim to be completed, as opposed to some of my (newer/younger) fellow simmers.
After my divorce, about 28 years old at the mall and a flight school had a portable sim setup you could play with and you could get a certificate for a 1 hour flight I think it was $25 at the time. (I remember my training instructor and aircraft was $48 an hour for my PPL) I got a certificate and took the flight about a week later and never looked back after that.
1988 was the year and unfortunately had to stop in 2017 when I started having vertigo spells and was diagnosed with Menier’s Disease. I had a little over 600 hours and PPL and Glider certs.
I’ve been fascinated by aviation for as long as I can remember. I always liked flying games on consoles when I was a kid and when I got my first PC when I was about 10 an uncle got me Red Baron (the original DOS game) which I played quite a lot and from then I got into other military flight sims, the 90s was really a golden age for them. First civilian flight sim I had was Microsoft Flight Simulator 5 or 5.1. Think I still have it around in a box somewhere. You don’t get manuals like you used to.