If you were coming to this page to find out why I decided to fly, I'm sorry but I don't have any real great insights into the matter. I really wanted this page to be a "thank you" for all the staff at Journeys but I hope you won't mind if I indulge myself a bit and explain what got me here.
They say that about 98% percent of the people who learn to fly do so because they have had a dream or yearning to fly for a long time. Most of them having this dream while they were younger. I can't really say that I am in that vast majority and might be in the odd 2% since I don't really remember having dreams or visions of flying as a kid. I do remember one particular time as a little boy playing in my grandmother's yard on the farm with my two younger brothers when a crop duster came roaring out of the sky dropping pesticide on the field about 50 yards from the us and my grandmother came running out and forced us into the house. While she closed up all the doors and windows my brothers and I were awed by the bright yellow plane as it swooped down right behind the backyard putting on our own little acrobatic show. Little did we know that while we pressed our faces to the window to see the plane drop right over the trees and spray a cloud of DEET on the field that the funky smell permeating the house was not necessarily a good thing!
My only other recollection of looking at aviation was sometime after I had graduated from high school. The Space Shuttle Columbia had recently made it's maiden voyage and I like probably a lot of men and women was thrilled at the idea of taking flight in space. How ridiculously naive I was! I remember having a hard time trying to figure out what to do with myself after high school and suddenly had the brilliant idea of being a space shuttle pilot. So I drove down to the local Air Force recruiter and walked into the office, sat down with the recruiter and when he asked what is it that I wanted to do I simply said I wanted to be a space shuttle pilot. I'm sure the guy still laughs about that one every now and then. But at the time he was very cool and said that he would look at my ASVAB scores and get back to me in a few days and let me know what I could do for the Air Force. Of course at the time I wore glasses and I understood that fighter pilots needed 20/20 vision but for some reason I thought they had a special school just for space shuttle pilots and the lack of 20/20 vision wouldn't be a problem (like I said, naive). Well he called me back in a few days later and offered me two fine positions as either a big truck mechanic or a clerk, either of which he assured that with hard work and time I "might" become a pilot (not a space shuttle pilot of course). With shattered dreams of not being able to go to outer space I thankfully declined the generous offer to fix big trucks and went on my way, eventually fixing big copiers! But that's another story.
I never really had anymore thoughts of flying until I went to Alaska with my friend Stephen Johnson this Summer. I was lucky to have a wee bit extra money to do some things I had never done before like taking a flightseeing tour. The first tour we took was with Rust's K2 Aviation around Mount McKinley or Denali. We wanted to fly the Summit Tour which climbs over Denali at over 20,000 feet and requires the use of oxygen but there were not enough passengers that day for the trip so instead took the Denali Grand Tour. This is an hour and half long flight that flies completely around Denali and is quite a tour. It was, to say the least, one of the most spectacular things I have ever had the privilege to do and I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves the mountains and likes to fly. But along with being able to see Denali I was also very curious about how I would feel about the plane ride. I had never flown in a small plane before and was wondering...would I get sick? would I have sinus problems? would I be scared? Well besides having the ride of my life flying around this gorgeous mountain and the scenery I remember the pilot banking our 1961 DeHavilland Sea Otter sharply over one of the glaciers and proclaim that "looking down was the glacier a mile below". While the Japanese man behind me was looking at the ceiling probably ready to barf, I was completely jazzed with my face shoved into the small window looking down and later kept hoping the pilot was going to do more steep turns like that. Needless to say I had no problems with the small plane.
On the last day of our trip to Alaska we did another flightseeing tour over the Kenai Fjords. Not quite as spectacular as the Denali tour but still breathtaking. I think our plane was a Cessna which our pilot flew over mountains and huge glaciers and I saw my first wild grizzly playing with it's cubs on a hill. When we got back to the airport I asked the pilot, Jim Clark, what he did during the off-season. He mentioned, much to my surprise, that he lived in Westminster, Colorado, a stones throw from my house, and that he might go back and do some flight teaching since he was a Certified Flight Instructor.
And there it was...I suddenly realized that I wanted to learn to fly. Maybe it's to relive those flightseeing tours or maybe its to travel to places unknown or maybe I'm still hoping to fly the next shuttle but I just knew that on that last day in Alaska I would be going home to Colorado to see if I could learn to fly
And this is where the Thank You to Journeys Aviation comes in. When I got back I home I called a few places to see about taking a Discovery Flight. For those who don't know, a Discovery Flight is a simple $49.00 flight for 30 minutes with an instructor to see if learning to fly is something you really want to do. They mostly take you up and out just like you were a student and give you a very brief lesson in the plane and the flight environment but its really just to see if this is something that you want to pursue. After calling a couple of places listed on the Internet, I called Journeys Aviation mentioning my desire to try a Discovery Flight and was transferred to Jack Stall, the manager of Journeys. After talking with Jack for a few minutes he handed me off to one of his instructors, Lucas Bostyan, who then setup a time on the next day to do the flight. I met Lucas the next day and he took me out in the Diamond (Katana) Eclipse and let me do the takeoff. And what a thrill. I think it was almost more fun not knowing what I was doing. We got back to the hangar and I signed on with Lucas and have never looked back.
During my brief time training with Journeys I have met some of the most wonderful group of people who have looked out for me to keep me safe as well as strive hard to help become a better pilot. And along the way I hope it will make me a better person. So my Thanks to you Journeys:
Thanks Jack Stall for hooking me up with Lucas and helping me with all the paper work. I wouldn't haven't been able to afford it without your help on all that paperwork. We still got to do lunch.
Thanks to John and Alex who dispatch from the front desk with courteousness and politeness and are always as helpful as can be.
Thanks Jason Buresh who helped give me extra lessons and who I got to bounce in the air much to his surprise but not delight!
Thanks to John Emery who sat with me two hours one day while I did 12 touch and goes so I could finally get the landings.
Thanks to John Ritson who gave that great advice "try not to land it" which made my landings safer.
Thanks to Alan Fernandez who could see I was 99% there (ok maybe %98) and kept pushing me harder to get there. Step on that ball!
Thanks to all of the other great instructors at Journeys that gave me advice or support along the way, Nissim Levy, Joed Foster and Tracy Spence.
And finally thanks again Lucas for giving me the gift a flight. Your a great instructor and a good friend!
Bill Snodgrass
