Isaac Alexander : Northwest Readers Share a Story
I was born in Tacoma, Washington. In 1974 my dad was hired to be a police officer for the Port of Seattle — which has jurisdiction over both the Seattle port and SeaTac airport. Our family moved to a home on the southwest side of the airport. We had a 75 percent view of both runways and all of the terminals from our house. I grew up watching planes transit there from the mid 1970s to the late 1990s.
My earliest aviation memory is of my first airplane ride on an Alaska Air 727-200 in 1979 to Anchorage, Alaska. My second aviation memory was visiting the Boeing Renton factory in 1984 to see the delivery of the last 727-200 to FedEx and my third memory, which was VERY memorable, was in November of 1984. A British Airways Supersonic Concorde departed for the first time from SeaTac airport on its roundtrip “Flight to Nowhere” – cruising with a planeload of VIP passengers to experience Mach 2, flying at 50,000 feet. There were hundreds of people along the street of the hill my house was on, photographing the departure. It was amazing (and LOUD)!
My first job working in aviation was in the U.S. Navy, where I served from 2004-2010. I went into the service undesignated and then later chose to be an aviation machinist mate. That title meant I would work on aircraft engines. My first four years of Naval service, I was with VFA-136 Knighthawks out of Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia. We operated both F/A 18 Hornets and Super Hornets. I did two multi-month cruises on the USS Enterprise in 2006 and 2007 during my time with the squadron. I visited places such as Lisbon, Portugal; Split, Croatia; Cannes, France; Dubai, U.A.E.; Hong Kong and Singapore. The last two years in the Navy I worked at the base engine shop overhauling GE F404 engines.
After I left the U.S. Navy, I knew I wanted to stay involved in aviation, but didn’t yet know what specifically. I started my aerospace freelance writing career under the brand Jet City Star back in October of 2010, after attending the second annual Aviation Geek Fest held at the Future of Flight. I started a Twitter account and mainly used that to spotlight aerospace news. This also led to doing some professional writing for various aerospace publications. After doing that for over a decade, I wanted to actually start a new business that would be an aerospace news aggregator, pointing out top aviation defense and space news daily from across the globe. Luckily, as fortune would have it, I wasn’t the only person on Earth that had the same idea.
I discovered Robin Koenig out of the Bay Area who built and designed a website called HypeAviation.com. I immediately reached out to Robin back in November of 2021 to find out what his vision was for his website. We chose to join forces and start operating the Hype Aviation together, with me in charge of the news content (Chief Content Officer) and events calendar and Robin being the CEO/Designer/Programmer for the site. We’ve been operating the site in beta since January of 2022. We then came out of beta and launched version 2.0 of the website in Los Angeles during an event operated by NYC Aviation.
For me, I’ve found my dream job and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve been fortunate to attend various aerospace events in the Pacific Northwest as well as beyond. I’ll next be attending the two largest space events in the USA — the upcoming Satellite 2023 show in Washington D.C. and Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I’m also VERY much looking forward to attending AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the second time. There’s nothing like seeing 10,000 aircraft and being around 600,000-plus people with a passion for aviation. The first time I attended it back in 2018, I came away physically exhausted but mentally/spiritually charged up from being around so much positive energy for aviation. This is one event I cannot recommend enough for people to attend!
The only universal rule I know is to follow where your passion takes you. It’s been a long road for me to find mine but I wouldn’t trade it now for anything. If you love your job, then it’s not work, it’s just something you do.
Find me online at either Hype Aviation or Jet City Star to see what’s going on in the world of aviation, defense and space around us.
