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A Major Disability Could Not Stop This Determined Sport Pilot

After a severe accident, Justin Falls persevered to achieve his dream to fly.

Sport pilot Justin Falls climbs into his Zenith STOL CH 750 that has been modified with hand controls. [Courtesy: Justin Falls]
Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • Quadriplegic pilot Justin Falls, who sustained a spinal cord injury at 18, overcame severe paralysis to achieve his dream of flying.
  • He learned to fly through an Able Flight scholarship and collaborated with Zenith Aircraft to design custom hand controls for his Zenith CH 750 STOL, enabling him to operate the plane using his limited hand mobility.
  • Falls plans to be the first quadriplegic to fly solo across the U.S. and eventually around the world, driven by the profound sense of freedom and accomplishment that flying provides him.
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Face it, we’ve all been there. We develop a dream to fly through DNA passed down our family tree, or we took a memorable flight as a child, and that spark was lit. Whatever it was that was the genesis that forged our path to the sky, we all faced challenges along the way that could at times seem impossible to overcome. Some of us made it and became pilots, while others “washed out,” and our aviation dream never materialized.

Those challenges that impeded our progress toward the coveted pilot’s certificate might have seemed impenetrable, but when we look at what sport pilot Justin Falls of Lincolnton, North Carolina, has done to overcome his challenges in order to fly, just about anything we faced was, by comparison, absolutely nothing.

Dan Pimentel

Dan Pimentel is an instrument-rated private pilot and former airplane owner who has been flying since 1996. As an aviation journalist and photographer, he has covered all aspects of the general and business aviation communities for a long list of major aviation magazines, newspapers and websites. He has never met a flying machine that he didn’t like, and has written about his love of aviation for years on his Airplanista blog. For 10 years until 2019, he hosted the popular ‘Oshbash’ social media meetup events at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh.

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