Feeling like a kid

Picture a tool that can transform lives. It's part time machine, whisking you away to places near and far faster than you ever thought possible. It's part business tool, bringing you closer to clients, increasing your ability to do more face-to-face business, and helping with your work-life balance. Finally, and perhaps most important, it's part social network. Not only does it have the ability to bring you and your family closer, it helps you make new friends. While the description may sound like a commercial for a new product from Microsoft, this tool was first conceived more than a hundred years ago. It's a general aviation airplane, and you're learning how open up the world of personal aviation right now.

Picture a tool that can transform lives. It's part time machine, whisking you away to places near and far faster than you ever thought possible. It's part business tool, bringing you closer to clients, increasing your ability to do more face-to-face business, and helping with your work-life balance. Finally, and perhaps most important, it's part social network. Not only does it have the ability to bring you and your family closer, it helps you make new friends. While the description may sound like a commercial for a new product from Microsoft, this tool was first conceived more than a hundred years ago. It's a general aviation airplane, and you're learning how open up the world of personal aviation right now.

Blending personal enjoyment, business asset, and social and even missionary tool is exactly how Terry Russell sees aviation. After dreaming about airplanes since he was a child, Russell is now a student pilot. When he was young, Russell said he "had that image of military planes and flying those jets and fighters seemed exciting." But as he grew up, got a job, started a family, and purchased a business, Russell thought his dream of flight was all but gone. "The further on in life you go, the more you sort of cut off your options," he said. "You have kids, and all these obligations, and you start to think this kind of thing is out of reach."

Russell never gave up on the idea of learning to fly, but it wasn't until meeting some pilots at his church that his passion was reignited. One pilot flew him and his wife to dinner in a nearby town. When they came back from that evening, he thought maybe flying wasn't so out of reach after all. "When I came back I felt like kind of a kid again." Why have I pushed this feeling down so long, he asked himself.

Soon Russell signed up for lessons with a local flight instructor. Russell has since plunged into training, blazing through the curriculum. He spoke to AOPA for the first time on a Friday, and he was feeling particularly upbeat and excited about his training. That's because he had soloed the day before, a significant milestone in flight training that gave Russell even more motivation to keep going. That was evident on the following Monday, because Russell had already flown his third solo flight. "I just don't want any grass to grow under my feet," he joked.

Russell said that when he first started doing research on the training process, he was surprised to find the costs more reasonable than he expected. Making the ends meet during the training is easier now that Russell won a scholarship from AOPA through the association's Flight Path program. Flight Path is a unique opportunity for student pilots to track their flight training progress online and possibly win $1,000 in the process. Everyone who signs up is given a personal page to read about the flight training process and check off milestones as they are achieved. At each milestone, the user is automatically entered for a chance to win a $1,000 scholarship toward flight training. Russell is one of five in a first round of winners.

It was the milestone tracking that really attracted Russell to the Flight Path program. "It gives you a very visual perspective of where you are in the process. Being an accomplishment-driven person, being able to check those things off was nice," he said.

When Russell finishes his training, which at the rate he's going will be before you read this, he plans to do some unique and important work with the airplane. For Russell, the airplane will be more than just a way to fly to other airports and eat hamburgers.

A few years ago Russell bought a business, one in which he can use his airplane to help with productivity. "For me to find a local airport and do some sales training for a guy for a day would be great," he said. "It will be more efficient than driving and I will save myself some time." Russell lives in Michigan, and an airplane will bring him closer to his clients in northern Indiana, northern Michigan, and elsewhere in the upper Midwest.

But business isn't the core reason Russell is learning to fly. It's just a nice perk. The real reason is that flying fits his personal and his family's goals. "I want this to be a hobby that brings my family together that I'm passionate about," he said. "When I go golfing I'm away from my family for eight hours. If we fly somewhere, it will keep my family together." Russell said he has family all around the Midwest, and flying will make visits easier, meaning they'll likely go more often.

Finally, Russell sees aviation as a way to bring his church together. With the other pilots in his small congregation who helped push him to start lessons, he hopes to do fly-outs, camping trips, and other outings that he says will help strengthen relationships.

For Russell, learning to fly has been a life-changing experience. "I'd be hard pressed to find anything that makes me feel like a kid again like flying does. There are very few firsts left in your life when you hit your mid-30s," he said. "Who knows where it will take me?" Luckily for him, Russell only need wait until his checkride to experience another life first--his first day as a pilot.

Help is here

Did you know only about 30 percent of people who begin flight training end up earning their certificate? There are many reasons why students dropout, but AOPA is trying to change that. As part of a larger association initiative to stop the leaking bucket that is flight training, AOPA developed the Flight Path program. The basis of the program is a series of 24 e-mails that are sent on a frequency chosen by the user. Each e-mail is full of resources and information to help you through the training process and keep you excited, informed, and involved. Along the way there are five milestones--your first flight, the day you get your student pilot certificate/medical certificate, your first solo, the date you passed your knowledge test, and the day you passed your checkride. Fill in the information for those milestones and each time you are automatically entered for a chance to win $1,000!

Deputy Editor Ian J. Twombly holds commercial pilot certificates for airplane single engine and multiengine land and single engine sea. He is also a CFI/CFII.