(March 2011) — I’M ONE OF THOSE people you might have heard about who’ve made their first certificate a Sport Pilot certificate. I wasn’t new to flying either. I had taken a break from the beginnings of a passion that, as a teenager, I thought would blossom soon enough.
The day of my first solo has remained vividly etched into my mind. It was a chilly December morning, the sky shrouded with the white, winter pall of a high, overcast ceiling — and it was my 16th birthday — when I climbed into an Aeronca 7EC Champ. My dad, instructor and brother stood along the side of the grass strip watching as I taxied the short distance to 27. The nervousness that had set up camp in my psyche gave way to focus as I did my run-up. Ready and cleared for takeoff, I taxied onto the runway, swung the taildragger around and added full power. In that moment I experienced the freedom of flight under my own power — and it was like nothing I had felt before.
