This 82-year-old is an active flight instructor in Dyersburg, Tenn.
I got my first airplane ride for 25 cents when a barnstormer landed his Beechcraft Travelair in my neighbor's cow pasture near where I was picking cotton. That was 1935, and I was 12 years old, one of three adolescents the pilot loaded into that open cockpit for the ride that changed my life.
It was in September of 1968 that I actually did get to start learning to fly. My instructor was the wife of the local FBO employee, and I was her first student. While there may have been other women pilots, I never saw any and, and at times felt out of place in the local airport, something that did not seem to bother the nonconformist I was becoming.
Loving every minute of being in the air did not mean I felt secure in that plane. I was plagued by the local legend that eight hours of instruction was average for new pilots to solo. Nowhere near that level of confidence, but beyond that hourly score, I told my instructor to level with me. If she believed I'd never solo, she must tell me. I'd save my money and her time. But she would not give up. Her FBO husband, an instructor with many years of experience, suggested she try another angle. He stood on the runway and watched as I made a series of takeoffs and landings. Observing that I was consistently coming in 10 feet above the runway, he chided me that if he could jack up the runway those 10 feet, I could land confidently.
We worked with his suggestion, and six weeks after that first flying lesson, my instructor got out and said I was ready!
I wasted no time beginning to work on more ratings, commercial, then flight instructor, and soon afterward, instrument, advanced ground instructor, fhen in 1981, a multiengine rating. I subsequently earned a master's degree in aerospace education from Middle Tennessee State University. Most satisfying, however, was my growing roster of students, who were referred most often by former students.
Presently in my third decade of teaching flying, I have at last surpassed my tenure of teaching in the public-school system. While aviation was not my primary career, I've been fortunate to experience the joy of flight while igniting the passion in many other men and women, who in return, have taught me new and different ways to appreciate and approach flight. I have flown approximately 45 models of planes.
The Early Days
