I got my pilot's license when I was a senior in high school (1975). My father had purchased a 1974 Cherokee PA-180 (4 seater) the year before and I took lessons until I turned 18 and was able to get my license. Took some instrument training (never got the inst rating) and have approximately 550 hours now. That was a good little plane - I even got up the nerve to fly into Hartsfield one time - before they required an encoding altimeter. It was nerve racking because the controller told me to keep up speed on final as much as I could. Heck, I was almost at cruising speed coming down final approach - thankfully they got plenty of runway
.