Waypoints: Kids today

The contrast to a couple of decades earlier was remarkable. Back then you would see a bunch of smokers hanging out late at the bar, drinking heavily and barely making it to the briefing the next morning, measuring the eight-hour rule to the minute. (I’ve never known a pilot to break that rule, and many use 12 hours.) These days, no one smokes. The most anyone has to drink is one beer or maybe a glass of wine. On this trip, we were all headed to our hotel rooms by 8:30 p.m., with inboxes full of emails to deal with and photo and video cards to be reformatted before getting some sleep.

Before sunrise the next morning we would meet for breakfast, everyone on time and ready for another day of flying. I was especially impressed by the millennials. In their mid-20s, neither was a pilot and therefore would seem to have some license to view the experience as just another assignment. Instead, they relished the opportunity for adventure and openly displayed their excitement at getting to shoot airplanes doing remarkable things over some of the most beautiful landscapes in the country.

Contrast this with the too-frequent opinion of older generations that “kids today” have no interest in aviation; aren’t excited about it; and, generally, aren’t willing to endure what it takes to become a pilot. And those who manage to run the gauntlet to a pilot certificate can’t really fly without a magenta line to follow. And, by the way, get off my lawn!

Sharing the cockpit with me on this particular trip was Mark Brown, who leads the sales, marketing, and demo efforts at Quest Aircraft. We were flying the highly capable Quest Kodiak single-engine turboprop into and out of some challenging canyon strips in southern Utah. Brown, who grew up in an aviation family, expertly maneuvered the heavily loaded airplane into and out of some challenging terrain and wind situations, making it look easy. Later, he effortlessly flew the airplane during an air-to-air photo mission, a challenging exercise he has done many times before at places all over the world.

While in college he started a media company that had 11 employees by the time he graduated. He left a promising position in the world of New York City finance for a flying job because metropolitan desk duty just wasn’t his thing. In addition to the brawny Kodiak, he routinely flies a Piper Cub and his family’s stunning Cessna 195. He’s 29.

And although he’s flown over this part of the world quite a bit, he oohed and ahhed with the rest of us as the unfolding light dramatically changed the colors of the rocks below, the shadowed canyons giving up their darkness to the unrelenting morning sun. Despite his experience, he was not at all jaded about the wonders of general aviation flying.

His passion and enthusiasm reminds me of a couple of other general aviation professionals I met right after they graduated from college. Ben Marcus and Cyrus Sigari were eager young engineers at Eclipse Aviation when I first met them. Within a couple of years, the college friends left Eclipse to start JetAviva in 2006, which they grew into the world’s largest light jet sales company. Sigari still runs the expanding company while Marcus has left to start his own company, AirMap, which provides airspace information to the drone community. AirMap raised $26 million in funding in early 2017 and has partnered with such companies as Microsoft, Airbus, Sony, and Qualcomm. The two are in their mid-30s and both fly as often as they can. And like Brown, neither is wed to the magenta line in a technically advanced aircraft. They both fly all manner of GA airplanes, from aerobats and Spam cans to warbirds and business jets.

Scanning the general aviation horizon, I see numerous other young entrepreneurs and executives creating their own spaces in this business, and in other cases taking over family businesses, bringing new vibrancy to companies such as Hartzell, Wipaire, and Maule.

And while not every capable, young pilot will end up working for—or running—an aviation company, these role models give me great hope that future pilots will have someone they can relate to in general aviation. The challenge for us all, though, is to make aviation a welcome place not only for younger pilots but also for minorities and women, all of whom are vastly underrepresented here.

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