Looking back, I see I have never made an introductory post here.
My name is Ian. I grew up with a fascination for astronomy and the stars that was triggered when a friend of my father's (Frank Hall) loaned us his home-built equatorial mounted 6" Newtonian reflector. I spent many a fond hour observing the moon. I was 14 when Neil Armstrong first stepped onto the lunar surface and I remember it like it was yesterday.
I spent 20 years as an Avionics technician in our Air Force, and was involved maintenance and servicing of multiple aircraft types (C-130K, P3K, A4K, BAC Strikemaster, Aermacchi MB339, HS Andover and even the occasional T6 Harvard, and at every level of repair from black-box changer to depot level refurbishment & repair of multi-layer printed circuit boards.