Pilots

When Bonny Warner was 14 years old, a school assignment required her to list what she wanted to do in life. So Bonny made a list: She wanted to be a TV reporter, a pilot, and she wanted to win a gold medal at the Olympics. Oh yeah, she wanted to go to a good college and build a log cabin, too. Now, 25 years later, Warner has three down and two to go.

She still doesn't know why she listed "pilot." Maybe because from the time she was five she and her siblings watched the airplanes at the small Cable Airport in Upland, California, while her schoolteacher mom graded papers. "She knew we would be entertained," says Warner. "I thought you needed to be rich and famous to learn how to fly," she adds.

Warner entered Stanford but took a leave of absence to be a torchbearer for the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. There she discovered the sport of luge, and after giving it a shot at a beginner's camp, Warner made the national team in January 1981. A five-time national champion, she competed in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics. She graduated from Stanford in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism, and right out of college she snagged a job as a writer/reporter/producer for KGO-TV, the ABC affiliate in San Francisco. That's two items you can cross off her list.

At Stanford she met Peter Bing, whose passion was flying. Bing offered her a ride in his Cessna 414. "Right after we took off he says, 'All right, you fly' — the same thing we've all done to first-timers." Instantly Warner was hooked. At her local airport she started taking lessons every day — two, three, and four lessons per day. In just five and a half weeks Warner had her private certificate. (Scratch a third item.) Then she finished her instrument rating in 12 lessons — just three weeks. Having spent all her money on training to fly for pleasure, she thought it would be a great idea if she could get paid for flying, so Warner borrowed some money and earned her flight instructor certificate. A year after taking that first lesson — with five months off to train in Europe for the luge — Warner was a flight instructor.

While still working at the TV station, she started flying corporate aircraft. One night a student called her in a panic, saying she was weak on weather theory. Warner had planned to go into the station the following day, but instead she proposed to the student that they get together in the mornhng. "It was my 'aha' moment," she says. "I realized I'd rather teach than go to work as a TV reporter."

Warner sent an application to United Airlines in 1990, and to her surprise — "it has to rot for a while on somebody's desk, or so I thought" — the airline hired her almost immediately as a Boeing 727 flight engineer. She took a leave of absence to compete in the 1992 Olympics, but after the games she decided to retire from luge and focus on the airline career and her personal life. She worked her way up the crew chain, from Boeing 727 engineer to 777 copilot and finally to 727 captain. Along the way Warner acquired a series of light airplanes: a Taylorcraft, a Luscombe, and a Pitts, each of which she restored and sold. She married firefighter Tony Simi in 1996; they had a baby girl, Katy, in 1998.

Warner also did volunteer work for the Olympic Committee. Recently, the committee declared two-man bobsled a woman's sport. "A bobsled is a big Mack truck-type thing — you drive it sitting up," she explains. "A luge is like a Formula One racer, while a bobsled is like a 747." Warner decided to give it a shot. In January she went to bobsled driver's school for two weeks, and then instantly qualified for nationals. "A sled's a sled's a sled," she explains. "It's like flying an airplane — you learn the basics in a trainer and from there you keep taking a step up."

Last February, on the same Salt Lake City track where the Olympic bobsled races will be held this month, Warner snatched the silver medal in the nationals. She came just one-one hundredth of a second away from taking home the gold. She's ranked first in the United States and third in the world. "I've been to the Olympics three times; I've got the three Olympics T-shirts," she says. "I need an Olympic medal."

This time Warner hasn't put her career on hold. She recently underwent certification to captain a 737, which will give her more control over her schedule. Now every morning she flies shuttle flights from her home outside San Francisco to Salt Lake City; Colorado Springs, Colorado; or San Diego. Each city has an Olympic training facility. She works out in the afternoon and returns to San Francisco at night. "Flying is my passion," she maintains. "I just want that Olympic medal really, really bad."

And once she bags it, how much do you want to bet there's a log cabin in her future?