Between the private and commercial, Frank got his instrument rating. He's targeted January 2002 as the deadline for earning the ground instructor certificate and maybe even flight instructor, followed by instrument instructor in April 2002. Somewhere along the way he wants to get his multiengine rating, too. Based on his record thus far, there is every reason to believe that he will achieve each of those goals. If so, he will have earned seven different pilot certificates and ratings in seven years, and he'll still be shy of his nineteenth birthday. You can understand why I call Frank the poster boy for flight training.
His instructor at Kansas City Downtown Airport, Charles Mitchell, agrees. Charlie can't say enough good things about Frank, both as a person and a pilot. "He's probably one of the very best pilots I've worked with," says Charlie, who has worked with more than a few. "He has the right attitude. He's a sponge for information. He constantly wants to get better. He's the kind of person we need in the sky."
Frank shrugs off the effusive praise as if he's just another high-school senior pursuing a keen interest. The fact is he has other interests, most notably music. He plays piano in his school's jazz band and tuba in the school band and the Kansas City Youth Symphony. Tall and soft-spoken, Frank has a nice-guy personality that hides his formidable determination.
Frank's father, Ray, who is a pilot and airplane owner, remembers the moment Frank's instructional journey began. The two were flying home from a Boy Scout campout at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas. Frank sat in the right seat and handled the yoke. He was too short to see over the glareshield, so he did what kid-pilots do - he looked across the panel and flew on the gauges.
According to Ray, at some point during the flight Frank looked up and spoke the words that every pilot-parent longs to hear: "Dad, I want to learn to fly." Ray answered in the affirmative. "I told him, 'OK, if we set some goals and you work at it, we can start right away.'"
Frank was one month shy of his twelfth birthday when he logged his introductory lesson in a Cessna 152. Seven months later he took off with Charlie in a Cessna 172 bound for Key West, Florida, and then on to Georgetown, Grand Cayman, as participants in the annual Cayman Caravan. Ray and a friend flew separately in Ray's Piper Lance.
Frank hand-flew the 172 for the entire 24.1-hour trip, which ended prematurely on the return portion. Flying northbound in central Florida at night, Frank and Charlie noticed the oil temperature climbing and the oil pressure sinking - classic symptoms of a loss of engine oil. They elected to pull the power to idle and glide though the darkness to an uneventful landing at Cross City, where they discovered a leak in an oil line.
By the time Frank soloed on July 18, 1999, he had logged 192 hours during four years of dual instruction. "I was pretty comfortable" during the flight, he says, despite windy conditions, a busy traffic pattern, and a change of runways by the tower.
The next year went by slowly. Prior to his sixteenth birthday Frank had never been in the air by himself. Now that he knew the joy of solo flight, he couldn't wait for his seventeenth birthday. But poor weather reduced his flying opportunities, and he logged only 14 more hours for a total of 206 before taking the checkride for his private certificate.
Over the next nine months Charlie worked Frank hard, preparing him simultaneously for the instrument and commercial checkrides, but with a twist. "We had a two-out-of-three program," Charlie explains. "We'd do two difficult lessons - instrument procedures and commercial maneuvers - followed by a fun day." Frank's favorite "fun" lesson was to land on one of Kansas City International's 150-foot-wide air carrier runways, followed by a landing on a 20-foot-wide strip at nearby Roosterville. Compared to the expanse of runway available at Kansas City International, Frank called the Roosterville arrival "learning to land on a sidewalk," says Charlie.
Frank's landings are good, according to Charlie, but never good enough for Frank. "He's always looking for that little detail, that one-mile-an-hour difference, that will make it better."
By the time he took and passed his instrument checkride in April 2001, Frank had switched over to a large-format professional pilot logbook and had entered 290 total hours. At the commercial checkride, his total had grown to 310. Meanwhile, he earned money during the summer as a greeter for Kansas City-based Vanguard Airlines.
Given Frank's single-minded pursuit of pilot certificates and ratings, it comes as a surprise when he says he hasn't decided if he wants to make a career of flying. He believes he would enjoy corporate aviation more than the airlines because of the small-business environment of the typical flight department, the personal contact with passengers, and the variety of destinations and missions. After a little more thought he says he'll probably start out as a professional pilot and work up to owning an aviation-related business, although he is not specific about the type of business. "They all intrigue me," he says.
But there is plenty of time to sort all of that out as he works on achieving his near-term flying goals and deciding on a college and a field of study. It could be aviation, but more likely music, business, or marketing. Whatever the degree track, his college years will coincide with the pursuit of yet another aviation landmark - earning an ATP certificate on his twenty-first birthday.
Frank is more than just a good success-in-the-making story. We can all learn something from his example - the rewards of establishing ambitious goals and working long and diligently to achieve them; the smart strategy of maintaining a well-rounded outlook on the future; and the integrity of constantly honing our piloting skills.
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