The young lady in the photo is my oldest daughter, Savannah. An hour before I snapped this picture, she thought we were driving five hours to Spokane for a little father-daughter bonding at last month’s AOPA Fly-In. Nope.
Friend, General Aviation News columnist and Cirrus Sales Director Ivy McIver happily stuffed myself and Cirrus’ Director of Flight Operations Travis Klumb in the back seat of her SR-22T and took off for Spokane’s Felts Field (KSFF) for the fly-in.
Savannah wasn’t raised in an airplane as I was. But she has been flying with me several times in our friend’s J-3 Cub… and has loved every minute of it. But this experience was different. Very different.
For starters, Ivy is wicked-smart (MIT doesn’t just hand out degrees), a great pilot and a strong (in all ways) woman. You know… someone Savannah can look up to. Oh, and an SR-22T is no J-3 Cub.
About 20 minutes into the 90-minute flight, Ivy turned to Savannah and said, “Your plane.”
She then proceeded to talk Savannah through how to disengage the autopilot and hand fly at 11,000 feet on an IFR flight plan. Within moments, Savannah held altitude and heading very smoothly. So well in fact, that Travis, sitting behind Savannah, asked if the autopilot had been re-engaged.
Nope.
“Do you play a lot of video games?” Ivy asked Savannah. “No,” came a quiet reply.
“Hmmm. Well you are spot on, good job.”
As we popped in and out of clouds, Savannah kept the plane on the straight and narrow until about two miles out on the instrument approach at KSFF. That’s where Ivy took over and landed.
Both Ivy and Travis were complimentary of her flying. I couldn’t have been prouder.
Savannah just beamed for the rest of the day.
Over dinner that evening, I laid it out. “If you truly want to learn to fly, we’ll make it happen. But you have to seek it out. I can’t make you want to learn. You have to go get it.”
At 15, she’s already far smarter than me (and I’m only kind of joking). She’s very focused on school, has a few other consuming interests, and is a quiet and rather shy soul.
Whenever I — or Ivy, for that matter — bragged up her flight to someone at the fly-in, she’d smile but also shrink a little at the attention. I know being gregarious is not a requirement to be a pilot, thankfully. With Savannah’s smarts, I feel that learning flying’s many nuances will come fairly easy to her.
And as much as I enjoy flying, I rather enjoy sitting in back and letting someone else do the heavy lifting.
I can’t wait until she taps me on the shoulder and says, “Dad, I’m ready.”
Absolutely correct JoeF. A local gliderport has teenagers helping out around the operation with the offer of flight training as pay. Gliders are a great way to get started in aviation and they can be flown solo by 14 year olds.
I fueled and washed many airplanes at 17 to get my PPL, CSEL/MEL and Instrument before my 19th birthday.
It can be done IF you want to.
REALITY check -my personal recommendation; she “best” get a SECURE position ($150K+ in business; IT, marketing, financial, etc AND buy a “toy” to fly on the week ends, unless she chooses to “live at home”, drive the 20+ year old car, and possibly have a lot of “fun” (professionally) pushing metal around the sky for $25K a year?
As a young woman in aviation today, pilots will give her every break they can to encourage her passion if she chooses to go that route. Women and pilot groups will grant her training scholarships if she applies for them and she will get opportunities to fly equipment I would have killed to fly when I was younger. Congrats on getting her hooked. :o)
Mr Jeff, I’m an aviator myself, always loved aviation at a young age. I look forward to achieving what other Pilots achieved(being on that cockpit seat) but our problem in South Africa is that Aviation is a very expensive industry, so if I may ask where we can get these Aviation Scholarships to become aspiring Pilots?? Kind Regards.
As a fellow introvert, i will bet that aviation will bring her out of her shell! It did for me, as long as i can talk about flying!
Brilliant !!!…………It took awhile after my 1st flight at eight and then many years later after being bitten by the bug to achieve my goal but the 1st flight started it. Seems she took a rel interest……….never quit chasing your dreams…………
Ben, can she afford to fly though?
I sure hope so…
As ever, where there is a will there is a way. If she is passionate about it, and keeps her eyes open, the opportunities will present themselves. Sure flying is expensive, but people from all walks of life figure out a way. Some of us just can’t exist in two dimensions.