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Whooooooooosh. I stared in amazement as the jet fighter thundered by, soon followed by the earsplitting roar of two afterburning jet engines.

It soared high into the air, turned and blasted away at some incomprehensible speed. That was it, I was hooked.

In that one, adrenaline fuelled moment as a five year old boy, I caught the aircraft bug, and I've never really lost it.

At an RAF roadshow in Devon aged five

Of course, you don't get many people down the local pub chatting about Gloster Javelins or the Saab Viggen, so my love of aviation tends to stay hidden.

It's a lonely existence being a plane spotter.

Be it the snarling hum of a classic piston, or the unmistakable thrust of a jet engine, I can think of very little better than spending my time looking at planes.

Is he yours?

In my youth I would drive my parents mad with my requests to attend airshows, standing in fields with drizzle and wind just to catch a glimpse of a Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker.

There was one occasion on a summer holiday in Devon where the obligatory RAF roadshow display was set up on the seafront.

Planes, old military vehicles and display cases flanked the promenade and I begged my mum and dad to go and have a look.

I encountered an old Spitfire, and a kindly RAF man engaged me in conversation.

"That's a Merlin," I said, talking about the engine.

Matt saluting in front of Spitfire VB

"No son," he replied, "that's a Spitfire."

Determined that I was right, smug six-year-old that I was, I replied: "I think you'll find it is a Merlin engine, the Spitfire is the plane."

"Is he yours?" was the gentleman's response to my parents.

Moment of glory

One of my proudest moments was when I took a seat in a Tornado - then the main frontline aircraft of the RAF's fleet. Sadly the plane never took off, but the Rutland Advertiser were on hand to record my moment of glory.

I have many more tales of my geekiness. A couple of years ago I took leave to look around aircraft museums on my own - there were surprisingly no takers; and as a boy I was a member of the Military and Aviation Book Club.

I have a wide collection of books about 1950s Russian bombers if you're interested… but I won't go on.

So I am most looking forward to my first visit to the Sunderland International Airshow. It's been a while since I saw a Mach 2 jet plane screeching by, and it will be my first introduction to the Typhoon - AKA the Eurofighter.

I'm very excited.