Airline Pilot

When Scott McCall was a kid growing up in California, his favorite pastime was flying a Lear 45 on Microsoft Flight Simulator. “My friends were playing Grand Theft Auto, and there I was in the simulator flying across the world,” he says. Scott’s parents recognized his interest in aviation and bought him two introductory flights. […]

Shalyn Marchetti, 23, was born and raised in the culture of general aviation. Her parents, both pilots, own and operate a private grass strip called Applegate (15MO), about 120 nautical miles northeast of Kansas City. She soloed in the family’s J-3 Cub there shortly after graduating from high school and is the only pilot in […]

Sometimes the urge to fly strikes when I least expect it. It’s always there, mind you, but sometimes it lies dormant while my attention is elsewhere, only to suddenly resurface. Take yesterday morning, for example. I was lounging in Windbird’s cockpit, sipping coffee and enjoying the warm Caribbean breeze while planning an upcoming sail to […]

Ever since she was a little girl, 25-year-old Seattle native Kelsey Yoder dreamed of becoming a pilot. Two of her uncles are pilots, but growing up she never met or saw any female pilots or had any exposure to general aviation. After graduating from high school in 2011, she decided to become a lawyer, like […]

Laura Mayo is a lover of all things that fly, especially airplanes. “I have devoted most of my education and field experience to birds, and now I get to fly with them,” she says. Mayo earned a bachelor’s degree in fisheries and wildlife sciences from Oregon State University in 2017, and has worked and volunteered […]

If there’s one continuous strand that winds through the motley tapestry of my life, one single word that sums up who I am and what makes me tick, it’s wanderlust. My family, youth, career, marriage and passions for motorcycling, sailing and flying are all tied together by a constant, inveterate urge to head over the […]

For 29-year-old National Guard veteran Justin Miller, the best part of being an airline pilot is the view from the flight levels. Miller recalls his first flight on a Northwest DC-9 from Detroit to Syracuse, New York, to visit his grandfather. “I remember looking out the window and seeing the Great Lakes, the snow-covered ground, […]

The rigors of an intensive, fast-paced flight training program are proving no match for 28-year-old Tennessee native Trevor Pickard. When he’s not working on his instrument rating, he’s training for his first Ironman competition, which he hopes to complete later this year. “Flying ties so many emotions together,” he says. “The sense of exploration, adventure […]

Oscar Mims knew at a young age that he wanted to be an airline pilot. His uncle is a pilot for American, and his mother is a flight attendant for Delta. The family’s airline travel benefits allowed him to see the country and develop a sense of what it would be like to work as […]

For a supposed airline pilot and aviation writer, I’ve spent a scandalous amount of time at sea level over the past year. In late October, my wife, Dawn, and I cast off the lines from our summer dock in the Chesapeake and pointed our 42-foot sailboat, Windbird, southward to the Caribbean. From the eye-popping waterscapes of […]