If you came here because of the SRpilot name you probably were expecting to find an airline pilot with millions of miles beneath him circumnavigating the world, or perhaps an autobiography of an SR71 pilot flying covert missions over North Korea and other hot spots in the world or you may have thought you would find a grizzled bush pilot. What you have actually reached is a website about the flying adventures of someone who didn’t even began his adventure to become a pilot until his late 50’s. The “SR pilot” name has double meaning for a senior person flying a Cirrus SR aircraft.
When that AARP cards started arriving in the mail, I was still running, biking, and windsurfing. I still had a lot of life to live. God had allowed me to fulfil many of my dreams but, fortunately, not all of them.
As a cub scout, I devoured every issue of Boy’s life magazine. There was nothing deemed out of the realm of possibility for the readers of that magazine. It perked an interest in adventure camping greeting card and address label sales as well as aerospace. But when the optometrist prescribed glasses for the diminutive, precocious 8 year old second grader, dreams of being a fighter pilot and then an astronaut were dashed.
In middle school, my attention turned to the engineering side of aerospace. Paper route money was funneled into dozens of model rockets. Interest in STEM activities pivoted to cars in high school years and then into Mechanical Engineering in college. A close brush with an aviation career came with an interview at McDonald Douglas coming out of college; But the sea of indescript drafting tables was grim. Instead, I chose a steady job with an innovative, growing company for a pleasant life and a good place to start and raise family.
My wife and I were sitting on the deck enjoying the summer breeze contemplating what to do next as our youngest was working construction away from home prior to his freshman year of college. An article about a four-place plane that you could build yourself that would do 200 miles per hour caught my eye. It was a perspicuous decision to build that plane and fly it.
Well, many things in life are not linear and although the goal may not change, how to get there might. Friends started to probe, “Have you ever flown in a small plane? How do you know you would like it?” and “Maybe you should get your pilots license first?”.
With the nudging from experienced friends and a flyer posted on the wall at the local airport, I became a partner of a Cherokee hangered at the airport 5 miles from my work. An octogenarian instructor was hired on recommendation and after some terrifying landings and a detour through the FAAs medical process the pilot license was finally mine at age 58. I found that I didn’t have copious free time to fill up once my kids were gone so instead of building, I bought a Cirrus SR22.