All in the family

A primary driver has always been the romance of flying. Some people love to take on new challenges, or like the allure of being able to do something that only a small fraction of the population can do. And although the major airlines have had their ups and downs in recent years, flying--for an air carrier or another entity--remains a good career choice.

But one of the strongest influences comes from family members, especially a parent, according to research done for AOPA in the mid-1990s. Generational pilots--not Generation-X pilots, although they're certainly represented here--tend to earn their pilot certificates at a younger age. Many solo on their sixteenth birthdays and pass the private pilot practical test on their seventeenth, the minimum ages established in the federal aviation regulations.

How strong is this connection? For these generational pilots, it is very strong.

E-mail Mike Collins, editor of AOPA Flight Training.

Kirk Fox of Frederick, Maryland, turns 16 in February. The high school sophomore is well on his way to becoming a third-generation pilot and, if not for minimum age requirements, probably would earn a pilot certificate before receiving his driver's license.

"He was holding the stick as early as he could," recalled his dad, Richard Fox. Years ago the family owned a Varga Kachina. "He could reach the rudder pedals [in the Varga], so he learned to take off and land that one--but he was flying [Piper] Cubs before that. I've probably got 800 hours of Cub time, and he can land it better than I can.

"Kirk gets that Cub on his sixteenth birthday if he's good," Richard added, pointing to a pristine yellow 1941 Piper J-3 in one of the family's two hangars at Frederick Municipal Airport.

"I love the Cub," Kirk said, explaining that a tailwheel airplane like that teaches good rudder habits. They estimate that he's flown a couple hundred hours in Cubs with his dad; he's logged another 55 hours of formal instruction with his flight instructor.

"I've been around airplanes all my life," Kirk continued. "My grandfather always had airplanes. My dad's always had airplanes. And I'm always around the airport."

For 35 years, Kirk's grandfather was a pilot for United Airlines; he owned and flew his own airplanes during and after his airline career. "His favorite was a Waco." Kirk's father, a pilot as well as an airframe and powerplant mechanic who is employed as a mechanic by a major airline, has owned 26 airplanes over the years.

"I was the same [as Kirk], always around the airport...I'm one of six kids, and two of us got the flying bug," Richard said. His older brother is a pilot who owns a Super Decathlon. Of Richard's four children, only Kirk--the youngest--has caught "the bug."

Kirk's friends know that he likes airplanes but are skeptical about the young man's piloting abilities. "Most of them don't believe me when I say that I fly. I might take one of my buddies flying when I get my private [pilot certificate]."

Nobody doubts that Kirk will solo the Cub before he gets his driver's license--then he'll have to wait a year before he turns 17 and can take his checkride. "He'll be good and ready for his checkride when the time comes," said J.J. Greenway, who has served as both a flight instructor and mentor to Kirk.

Over the years Kirk has brought a few of his friends to the airport, to share his love of flying. For most, it's the first time they've experienced flight--in a small airplane, for sure--and "they loved it." When it comes to flying, most people his age don't know what they're missing, Kirk explained. "It's fun. You get a lot of views you don't get anywhere else. I love it," he said.

"I think a lot of kids just don't know that aviation exists," Richard added.

Kirk is training to be a professional pilot, but he hasn't settled on a career goal. "I might go into the military and try to fly some jets for them." Richard said that while he tries to be encouraging, he's not pushing his son--Kirk is making his own choices.

Michelle Nixon of Santa Cruz, California, is a fourth-generation pilot. Her father is a pilot, and her grandfather and great-grandfather also flew. "When I turned 18, for Christmas my dad got me a flight bag, a logbook, the FAR/AIM, and offered that I start flying. I hadn't thought about flying to that point. But I thought I'd be stupid to pass it up."

Michelle said that although she didn't have "a burning desire" to become a pilot, she decided to take one step at a time, and began taking lessons. "I was excited and nervous. It actually took me five years to get my license because I kept moving, and changing instructors, and taking six months off at a time."

She was younger when her father flew actively, and she didn't always jump at his invitations to go flying. "I wish I would have taken advantage of that more often--when you're away from it for a while, you forget how much fun it is, and how exciting it is to see things from above."

Her father, John Nixon, of Rocklin, California, said he took the kids on a lot of trips by plane. "I think they were probably so used to it, they couldn't appreciate it--they'd done it so much during their lives, they didn't realize what a privilege it was."

He said Michelle loved to fly but initially was apprehensive about becoming a pilot. "I convinced her that learning how to do it would be a great step for her self-confidence. I told her if she wanted to try it out, I would support her--but she had to stick with it to solo."

She did. "After that she said, 'Boy, this is fun--I can do this.' She has taken it a lot further...she may make a career out if it at some point," he said.

Michelle is continuing a flying tradition that goes back to World War I. Her great-grandfather was an aircraft mechanic during World War I. "They required that the mechanics fly the airplanes after they worked on them," John Nixon explained.

His father, Jack Nixon, was a 22-year Air Force veteran who retired as base operations officer for the Strategic Air Command at Offut Air Force Base in Bellevue, Nebraska. "He had about 8,500 hours in military aircraft. His last stint was flying KC-97 tankers. He did lots of check flights with generals." But after leaving the Air Force, Nixon's grandfather never flew as a civilian. "He gave it up entirely."

Jack Nixon passed away while Michelle was training for her private pilot certificate. "The family influence was mostly from my dad," she recalled. "I never really talked with my grandpa about flying." Her grandmother has given her his military flight computers and other mementos. "That's how I share the experience with him."

Others in the family have become interested in flying, too.

"I remarried," John Nixon said. "We have four kids in all, between my wife and me. I mentored her son, and he has his private pilot [certificate] now. We have two more daughters, and both of them have expressed an interest in flying."

Nixon sold his airplane about 12 years ago and hasn't flown since then. His stepchildren have never been flying with him. "We go to airshows and do other things that keep aviation in front of them. And Michelle was taking her lessons--they watched her progress." Michelle's earning her pilot certificate was especially inspiring to his stepson, Casey Ruth.

"I was away at college when he did his training. So I didn't talk with him a lot while he was training, because he did it so quickly--in just three months--but we talked about it a lot afterwards," Michelle said. "We can laugh about how he didn't close his flight plan on his first solo cross-country. I think it has brought us together, although not necessarily during the process."

She sees the strength of family influence firsthand in her part-time job as a bookkeeper at United Flight Services in Watsonville, California. "I ask people that come in who are pretty young, 'Is your dad a pilot?' The answer is almost always yes."

Michael Scuderi, 18, a freshman at Mercer County Community College in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, has been around airplanes for a dozen years. "When I was 5 or 6 years old, I remember that my dad took me up in his Cessna 172, and we did the Hudson River route," flying through a corridor above the Hudson River, west of and right beside New York City. "This is when he was flying out of Teterboro, New Jersey. When we turned around at the Statue of Liberty, he let me do the turn. That was the first time I'd touched the controls. After that, I was pretty much glued to flying."

From that point on, the younger Scuderi accompanied his father whenever he could. "Whenever he would go up on business trips--or charity runs to Boston--I'd go with him." His dad, who owns a company and flies both for business and pleasure, likes to stay proficient, and often they would fly somewhere for lunch. "We'd just go for joy rides every once in a while."

Michael earned his private pilot certificate during his senior year of high school. While his learning to fly came up a lot in conversations with high-school classmates, "they weren't overly interested in the fact that I was going for it. Most of the time they don't understand what goes into learning to fly."

He is majoring in aviation management at Trenton Mercer Community College, where he's also working on his commercial pilot certificate and instrument rating, and would like to join the college's flight team. "Hopefully when I graduate, I could go anywhere in business, but be especially qualified for the aviation world."

Michael said his dad has been supportive since the beginning. "I was born into it. He was thrilled when I decided what I wanted to do." He believes he eventually would have become interested in flying, even if his father had not been a pilot. "It would have been a lot more difficult, but I still would have done it."

His experiences learning to fly differ from those of his father, Mike Scuderi, who grew up in a rural area. "When I was about 14 or 15 or so, there was nothing to do at that time for kids. My father had an addition put on the house, and the contractor was a commander of a Civil Air Patrol squadron. He suggested I come up and have a look.

"He took me up for an orientation flight, and that's what got the ball rolling." Without that, Mike said, he never would have had the opportunity to fly.

Mike's father encouraged him but couldn't afford to pay for lessons, so he helped him get a job caddying at a golf course. "I worked every summer and spent every dollar on learning to fly." He did the same with his son, so Michael can understand the value of work to recreation and education. "He has done exactly what I did."

Today Mike is a multiengine commercial pilot with an instrument rating. He has owned 10 airplanes over the years; he currently owns a Cessna 182 with another pilot, and flies a twin-engine Cessna 421. He considers it important to fly beyond his business use, donating flights for the National Burn Victim Foundation and remaining involved with CAP as a senior member. "I feel pilots have a moral responsibility to give back by supporting these kinds of organizations, or Angel Flight or any other humanitarian organizations."

From an early age, Mike took his kids flying with him. At 15, Michael said he wanted to learn to fly. "I put him with an instructor at Caldwell Airport, and after three hours the instructor came to me and said, 'We have a problem--he's ready to solo. What did you teach him?'"

Michael had learned a lot from his father when they were flying--"as if he'd been a student," Mike said. The younger Scuderi had learned about navigation, radio communications, and got some flight time. "I didn't realize it until the instructor came back to me." He had also used Microsoft Flight Simulator at home. "I think that was a great supplement. It helped him learn the relationship between attitude and airspeed, and VOR interpretation," Mike said. "He was determined to solo in the same amount of time or less than I did, and to get his license in the same amount of time or less than I did. He came very close."

Are you a generational pilot? If so, perhaps something in these stories will remind you of your own experiences in deciding to learn to fly. Regardless of your answer to that question, we hope that they will encourage you to share your love of flying with the next generation.