A recreational pilot tours the nation
That's not the premise of a new reality TV show, but it is the mission that 58-year-old Marjorie Ross completed this past year.
Ross, who says she's not the typical grandma, earned her recreational pilot certificate in 2004--more than three decades after her first flying lesson in college. Her flight instructor at the time discouraged her from learning to fly; he thought she should learn to drive first. So, like many aviators, she put flying on the back burner until she had raised a family and built a successful career, including owning a sewing and embroidery manufacturing company.
Name: Marjorie Ross |
Ross's aerial travels kicked off on February 23, 2005. She had planned to fly to St. Louis with an instructor, but had to scrub that destination because of snow. Her alternate? Detroit, with a hop to Canada.
Some states Ross would check off during vacations. She landed in Alaska, Washington, and Oregon during a cruise. A flight instructor met Ross at the cruise ship in Juneau to take her to the airport for a flight lesson in a Texas Taildragger.
To reach other states, she would have to hop airline flights. Ross booked last-minute weekend specials through Delta and searched AOPA's Airport Directory to find general aviation airports near her destinations that offered flight instruction. She always scheduled her flight lessons before flying to the state. Some couldn't believe Ross's story; after all, few pilots take a commercial flight to a distant location just to fly in a GA aircraft.
One instructor admitted that he showed up at the airport for their scheduled flight just to see if she would be there. "I don't think he thought I was for real at all," Ross says.
In October 2005, she flew out of Denver to add seven more states to her list, completing her flights just before a blizzard dumped 20 inches of snow in the area. She then headed to New England for a view of the brilliant autumn leaves. Ross knocked out 13 states in three weeks, but with only 14 weeks remaining, she still had 13 more to go. "For a while, it seemed like I was traveling every other weekend to fly," Ross recalls. "I was trying to make as few extra trips commercially as possible."
During her journey, Ross landed at sea level, in the mountains, in a canyon, and on a grass strip; logged night and instrument training; and learned first hand about mountain obscurations and oxygen deprivation.
Fifty weeks, 65 landings, and 90 hours of logged flight time after she started, Ross could boast--from Hawaii--that she'd landed in all 50 states. She'd saved the tropical state for last.
On February 9, 2006, Ross completed her adventure by flying around three islands in Hawaii, landing at each, and watching from the air as whales and schools of fish swam in the crystal waters off the islands. "I even landed on one runway and could see the waves splashing at the edge of the island," Ross says. "It was spectacular to complete my goal in this paradise."
Alyssa J. Miller is an assistant editor for AOPA's electronic publications. A private pilot, she is training for her instrument rating.
