Pilots

Flight students come from all over the world to Big Bear City, California, a tiny town with a population of just 3,800, to learn from Mike Smith, an instrument and multiengine instructor. They are amputees; paraplegics; or victims of cancer, polio, arthritis, muscular dystrophy, or any number of life-altering adversities.

The majority of Smith's students leave with private pilot certificates; he graduates his disabled students with a 90-percent success rate. Some get even higher ratings. A few have gone on to earn at least part of their livelihoods in commercial aviation. The ones who don't graduate, Smith says, are generally hampered by decreasing ability rather than by lack of desire or financing. Many of his students are the recipients of scholarships given by overseas organizations such as Great Britain's Royal International Air Tattoo. "For some of these students, a pilot's license is not realistic because of the degenerative nature of their disabilities," Smith said. "But we don't discriminate. The scholarship is for 40 hours of flight experience, and they're given the opportunity to feel the freedom of flight. It's a very positive experience for them."

A cluster of Polaroids, dated snapshots that celebrate the solo flights of elated students, line one wall of Smith's flight school, Aero Haven Inc., located at Big Bear City Airport. There are smiles of students from Great Britain, Austria, Finland, Sweden, France, Germany, South Africa, Australia, and the United States.

Why Big Bear and Mike Smith?

There are many factors. Weather is one — Big Bear Valley averages 330 days a year of blue skies. And while the location is a bit remote — a three-hour drive from Los Angeles and some 6,750 feet up into the San Bernardino Mountains — there is not the same level of rental demand on Smith's airplanes as there would be at flight schools in more populated areas. Students rarely wait in line for an airplane. But the clincher is that Smith himself is in a wheelchair. He is one of only four wheelchair-using CFIIs in the United States. He doesn't just go the mile in his student's shoes, he is in their shoes. He knows that his students have absolute and specific needs, and his concentrated programs are tailor-made to meet those needs. Lessons are taught not from the standpoint of "this is how you have to do it," but from the very personal "this is how we have to do it."

Smith is a 12,000-hour pilot. Among the first to fly Cobra helicopters, he was decorated for service in Vietnam. In the early 1970s he launched a civilian career flying air charters out of Southern California's Ontario Airport. Working with Western Helicopters, he flew under government contracts all around the country. He also piloted choppers, as well as fixed-wing aircraft, for the Loma Linda Medical Center.

Sixteen years ago, during a routine crop-dusting job in a Bell Model 47 helicopter, wires from nearby power lines tangled in the rotor mast. Stopped dead, Smith's chopper smashed to the ground. When he was pulled from the wreckage, his back was broken. He thought that his flying career was over. And it was — until someone thought to apply to airplanes the hand-control concept designed for cars. With some adjustments, he was back in business. Smith holds ratings through airline transport pilot, including rotorcraft-helicopter. At present, he is the only wheelchair-using pilot in the nation to fly air attack for the U.S. Forest Service. He travels to other parts of the country, presenting programs on mountain flying, and he also shows other flight instructors how to teach disabled students.

At Big Bear Airport's FBO, Smith offers flight lessons and a list of services that includes transcontinental charters.

Most of the students fly with hand controls, devices that attach to the pedals and simulate foot pressure for rudder control and braking. Hand controls are light and portable, about the size of a multi-tipped metal walking stick. Smith has hand controls for Pipers, Beechcrafts, and Cessnas, including his Skymaster. He has toppled a long and frustrating list of barriers, bringing aviation to his disabled students. "A lot of them have been told that they couldn't fly, that they'd never get their licenses," he said. "Information varies around the country. It's not been standardized in the industry yet. I've heard some real horror stories. When students come here, I get them started in the right direction, with the right people."

In fact, Aero Haven is pretty much a one-stop operation. Smith has housing facilities, transportation for students, and information on the United States Adaptive Recreation Center, also located in Big Bear. The center offers many recreational opportunities to people with disabilities. Depending on the season, the center sponsors snow skiing programs, off-roading in wheelchairs, and summer sporting events on Big Bear Lake. Aero Haven has the atmosphere of an always-bustling kind of place, the sort of place where people always feel welcome. There is a warm camaraderie and a constant exchange of encouraging words as students move closer and closer to their lofty goals. When they see the earth fall away, students seem to acquire a new and exhilarated sense of self. "It was the first time," said a woman from Scotland, a cancer survivor and amputee, "that I forgot I'd lost my leg."