Tintin Forums

I've read somewhere that when Hergé first created Tintin, he meant for him to be 13 or 14, but after people asked how Tintin could drink alcohol at that age, he decided to change it to 17.

But in the movie, Tintin: The Secret of 'The Unicorn' he says, "I was once a pilot"...
How could Tintin have learned to be a pilot before the age of 17?

I think we just have to accept that Tintin is a very capable fellow, with all sorts of talents - he's an expert on the design of fighting ships and the history of the Navy at the stall in the market-place, and the ability to ride a motor-bike or fly a 'plane just goes with being a globe-trotting adventurer.

In real life you can learn to fly from quite a young age, although you wouldn't be able to qualify as an actual pilot; 16 would appear to be the earliest that I can find reference to.

Hergé may have had the idea of an age somewhere between 14 and 17, but it's clear from the word go that this was never meant to be a realistic approach – he's sent off on his own to report from Russia for a newspaper in the very first book, and that's even more unbelievable than him being able to fly a 'plane.

Actually what he says to Haddock in the movie is that he "once interviewed a pilot" (my emphasis), as if that and reading the manual very quickly would be enough to be able to do it – but I think we can safely assume that he was joking at the time!

Well, he flew in Cigars of the Pharaoh, right? All the way to India, and that was well before Crab with the Golden Claws, Unicorn, or Red Rackham's Treasure.

So yes, he can fly all right. The movie just took a little bit extra liberty everywhere.