From ultralights to airplanes: Heather Dirksen
Former repo TV star
Growing up in Saranac, Michigan, Dirksen would fly in her father’s Piper J–3 Cub. “We would fly from Michigan to Canada, and he would videotape goose or bear hunts,” Dirksen said.
Dirksen learned to fly ultralights while working in Abu Dhabi, and she bought a paraglider in Kosovo. When she returned to the United States she switched to fixed-wing aircraft, flying twice a week in a Super Decathlon. Dirksen didn’t have much trouble transitioning to the heavier aircraft. “The ultralight and paragliding is so much more of a precision flying than just getting in a Cessna and heading out and learning that way,” she said. “The ultralights are more delicate, [and] you just get a feel for aerodynamics pretty quickly when you’re paragliding. I would say it probably made it easier when I started my tailwheel training. My instructor might tell you differently. He yelled at me a lot.”
How did this path lead to a reality TV program on the Discovery Channel? Dirksen was crewing for the P–51 Miss America at the Reno Championship Air Races. Airplane Repo cast members Kevin Lacey and Mike Kennedy visited the crew and became fast friends, Dirksen said. A producer of the show approached her. He had heard from Lacey that Dirksen was performing aerobatics and wanted to fly as much as possible. He called her several months later to ask if she was still interested. She joined the show’s second season, which aired in 2014.
Airplane Repo depicted Lacey, Kennedy, and Sterzik recovering airplanes in Texas, Illinois, Florida, and Missouri from owners who had fallen behind on their payments. “When I started filming, I was uncomfortable on the set at first,” she said. “By the time the [third] season rolled around it was like any other job.”
The show had its fans but also its detractors, who called out Discovery Channel for re-enacting many of the sequences. Dirksen wasn’t fazed. “Your friends at the airport are like, ‘Come on, it’s fake,’ and you get people who absolutely love it and fans contacting you saying ‘You’ve inspired my daughter.’ You get both sides of it and ignore the negative and embrace the positive and be a positive role model whenever you can.”
Airplane Repo wasn’t renewed after the 2015 season. Dirksen stepped away from aviation to recuperate from surgery and chemotherapy following a diagnosis of thyroid cancer. She married pilot Jeremy Dirksen in 2015. While you can still view snippets of Airplane Repo online and see Dirksen liberate an airplane, these days she’s content to fly with her husband and leave the repos to others.
