Connie Sue White recently joined Flying‘s editorial team as managing editor. Connie Sue, a University of Florida journalism grad, brings 20 years of magazine publishing experience to Flying, as well as a strong flying heritage (thanks to her father’s passion for aviation). Her first memory of “taking” the controls was during a family trip in her father’s Bonanza when she was 7 (yes, there’s a bit of a story behind that!). Not too long after that, her dad, a young 42, quit a well-paying white-collar job and started a new career: rebuilding Waco biplanes (and yes, there’s a story behind that, too!). Then, he purchased a grass strip in Zellwood, Florida. With airplanes all around her, mostly antique biplanes and high-wing taildraggers, and plenty of time hanging out at the airport (her dad lived on the airport), it was only natural that she learned how to fly. Her first “lessons” began with her father in a Piper Cub when she was 12. She later transitioned to an Aeronca 7EC Champ, in which she soloed on the morning of her 16th birthday (much to hermother’s dismay, but that’s yet another story). Connie Sue flew casually around the patch for the next couple of years, before heading off to college. When she returned home, it was always her intention to learn how to fly her dad’s Waco, Big Red.
“Flying in that open cockpit seemed to be about the purest kind of flying there is, so peaceful and gentle, ” she recalls. “When we’d go up, I would regularly glance back at my dad and we’d always flash big, wide grins at each other.”
