Serendipity

There were other races, and more earnings, at other tracks in New York state, among them the Finger Lakes racetrack in Farmington. Logistics became a problem. To get to Finger Lakes meant loading Hettinger; his wife, Corinna; the jockey; and the trainer into a car; driving to LaGuardia Airport for a commercial flight to Rochester, then renting a car for the trip to the track. Neighbor to the rescue: The flying bug first bit when a neighbor with a Cessna 182 offered to fly them to a race. That must have gone over well, because after that Hettinger chartered flights to races, mostly in a Beechcraft Baron.

In all, De Acuerdo won three times, placed once, and made his way up the stakes levels in the process. Then disaster struck. During one race the horse’s foreleg shattered, and De Acuerdo was euthanized.

The charter flight home was a sad one, but not without inspiration. Hettinger sat in the Baron’s right seat and experienced a flight in hard IFR for the first time. “This airplane was amazing to me,” he recollected. “It had an Argus display, which was a big deal then, plus weather radar. And I watched the pilot fly an ILS approach to minimums.”

That did it. The next day, he signed up for a discovery flight in a Cessna 172—and took up flying with a passion. He earned all his certificates and ratings—up to multiengine airline transport pilot and CFII—in a year’s worth of intensive study at Vero Beach, Florida’s FlightSafety Academy. “I could see where this was going,” said Corinna, who promptly started her own flying lessons, beginning with a pinch-hitter course and following up by earning a private pilot certificate with a multiengine rating. Turns out that she loves flying as much as her husband does.

“That’s when I became aware of the acronym ‘QTR,’ for Quality Time Remaining. ”Bill and Corinna set out on an epic string of airplane ownerships and adventures, all the while staying involved in the horse-breeding and real estate businesses. Their first airplane: a used Socata TB20 Trinidad. After a fixed-gear Piper Saratoga came a Colemill-converted Navajo, followed by a step up to jets: a Cessna Citation 501SP with Sierra Industries’ Eagle II conversion, and their current Citation, a CJ3+. On their many trips, which included a nearly three-month around-the-world journey, Corinna flies right seat and performs second-in-command duties. Why fly around the world? It goes back to that neighbor with the 182, the one who first introduced Bill to flying. And who died at a young 56 years old in 2013.

“That’s when I became aware of the acronym ‘QTR,’ for Quality Time Remaining,” Bill said. “So I realized it was time for me to do as much as I could, while I could still do it. Besides, it’s hard to ‘retire’ in the conventional sense when there are so many things still to learn.”

Hettinger’s eclectic interests extend beyond simply flying airplanes. He’s a builder, too—of a Legend Cub kitplane, and he’s currently working on a Lockwood AirCam. Then there’s the airframe and powerplant mechanic certificate he earned at the National Aviation Academy at the St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport. Plus the cabinetry, furniture making, and other woodworking skills he studied at Boston’s famed North Bennet Street School, where he now serves on the board of directors.

Hettinger bases his CJ3+ at Tampa Executive Airport and Cessna 172 at Peter O. Knight Airport. Son Charlie and daughter Caroline Foss grew up around general aviation airplanes and use the Skyhawk for training and local trips. During AOPA’s regional fly-in last year, Hettinger went over to the Skyhawk’s hangar, where Caroline was using the airplane to stage a photo shoot of a pilot watch—the SOLO—that Caroline and Charlie design and manufacture. A group of friends served as models. The proud parents looked on. And a stone’s throw away, just beyond the airport fence, was the home of Caroline and her husband, Peter. Another block away was Charlie and Jen’s house. Bill and Corinna live a mere quarter-mile from the airport.

So many of the twists and turns along life’s pathway hinge on pivotal events with a significance we don’t recognize at the time. This scene was all made possible by an impulsive decision, 30 years ago, to buy a horse.

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