Like so many of us who love aviation, I was lucky enough to have someone in my life who introduced me to the thrill of flight at a young age — in my case, my father.
As a fighter pilot in the Air Force for 21 years, first flying F-4s and then F-15s, and then as a 737 pilot at Southwest Airlines for the two decades that followed, my dad, Stan Whitfield, belongs to the ranks of professional pilots who have been able to make a life-long career out of flying airplanes.
