NAME: Michael Dunleavy
AGE: 67
EVENT: Passed private pilot checkride
WHERE: Quakertown Airport (UKT), Pennsylvania
AIRPLANE: Cessna 172
The sign said “Learn to Fly Here.” I was on my way home from running an errand. On impulse I turned to follow the the sign and found myself at Quakertown Airport. It was my sixty-fifth birthday, and I thought, let’s go look at the airplanes!
I have loved the idea of flying since I saw my first airplane at about 3 or 4 years old. It was magical, watching that bright silver craft in the sky. My father took me to my first airshow at Philadelphia Municipal Field when I was 7 years old. I can remember almost everything that happened that day, from the ride to the airport to seeing the Navy Panther Jets doing touch-and-go landings in front of the grandstand. The most amazing part of the trip was my first flight. It was on an American Airlines DC–3 from Philadelphia Municipal to Philadelphia North East Field. I sat next to the window, watched the propeller spin and the flaps come down.
During the next 40 or so years I visited a lot of aircraft museums in the United States, Canada, England, France, and Belgium. I attended airshows in all of those countries and a few more along the way. I logged several million miles on commercial airliners and, in the days it was allowed, joined the pilots in the cockpit crossing the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Quakertown is a small airport, single runway, a bit more than 3,000 feet long and no tower. I parked the car and looked over the several airplanes on the flight line. After gawking for a few minutes I entered the terminal and picked up some literature from the flight school, then Fowler Aviation. Bob Fowler struck up a conversation with me and as we discussed my interest in flying I opined that I was a bit old to learn to fly. Bob suggested that I take a get-acquainted flight. I said when? He handed me a headset and said, "Let’s go!"
I had not expected the offer nor the challenge. I followed Bob to N12331, got a briefing, did a preflight, and got into the pilot’s seat. He talked me through the start-up procedures. A few more checks and we taxied out. I shadowed Bob on the controls as we added power and began to roll. I was flying!
I left Quakertown with a logbook with its first entry, a student pilot kit, and a date for another lesson that Saturday. That night my wife had a birthday party for me. During the dinner my mother asked what I had done to celebrate my birthday. I told her I had taken my first step to becoming a pilot. My wife gawked, my oldest friend wanted to know if I was still in charge of my faculties, and my mother congratulated me and wanted to know how long until I would have my certificate.
That journey took two years and 60 hours of instruction. I wish I had made the time to fly when I was young enough to be able to spend many more years in the cockpit, but I am happy that I finally made the move to live the dream of a 6-year-old boy staring at the sky.
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