Although my dad was a pilot, he stopped flying before I was born. But he then went to work for United Airlines (as an engineer) and so we used to fly all over the place. I was always interested in his work. Then I became a geologist and started working in Alaska, where I had to fly in small planes and helicopters to get anywhere.
Despite all that, it never occurred to me that I could become a pilot until I was 39 years old and happened to meet and start talking to a guy who was a flight instructor. He gave me a coupon for an intro flight. It sat on my desk at work for a month, and finally I said to myself "yeah! I'm going to do this!"
That flight literally changed my life. I had never thought about flying, and from that day forward, it seems like I never stopped thinking about flying.
I recently met a young man who wanted a dramatic setting to propose to his fiance. He thought about it and discussed it with his friends and decided to do it on Maui, where you can take a helicopter ride to a secluded waterfall. When the moment came, she refused to get on the helicopter, and he had to frantically come up with a Plan B. I was talking about this story to one of my colleagues, and thinking that, gosh, he doesn't know her well enough to marry her if he doesn't even know she won't get on a helicopter! My colleague just looked at me and asked how on earth would normal people (i.e., non-flying people) ever find out? It made me realize just how aviation conscious I've become. Before I learned to fly, I'm sure I wouldn't have thought that's something you should automatically know about a future mate!
Judy
) people could become pilots. That memory has never faded.
