Wow Tappie, that is an incredible story!!!
For me, it's helped me with my work believe it or not. I now look at certain things with the eye for detail, if you know what I mean. Since I work on actual aircraft, a lot of the times we do custom avionics installations for out cutomers, and we have to make the instrument panels for them. Since I started modeling, my eye for straight edges, and just overall appearances has improved dramatically!!