The end of the beginning

By the time you read this my young friend Sam will be mere days away from IOE (Initial Operating Experience) at the controls of a Republic Airways Embraer. 

I took Sam for a Young Eagles flight in June 2016 in a Piper J-3 Cub. I knew Sam was interested in flying well before his Young Eagles flight. Any time our families socialized I made sure to spend some time with Sam talking airplanes.

He always drove the conversations. Some times he’d talk about the latest news from Gulfstream. Other times he’d want to talk about the airline industry or the military. His Dad would occasionally apologize for Sam taking up my time. My standard reply to David, Sam’s Dad: “Nonsense. I’m happy to chat with Sam about flying.” Most of the time, he told me things I hadn’t yet heard about.

While in high school Sam joined Puyallup, Washington-based Teen Flight for a few years. In Teen Flight, Sam got to help build a Van’s RV-12 and attend EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. While in high school, Sam also studied for his private written test alongside his normal courses.

After high school, instead of going to college, Sam moved to Texas to enroll at ATP Flight School. There he earned all the ratings an aspiring professional pilot needs. He started instructing at ATP, but eventually left for those ever-present greener pastures. Between instructing at a small Texas-based flight school and flying a jump plane, Sam was putting hours in his logbook.

Every once in a while he’d text a photo of himself holding his iPad with an ever increasing number scrawled on the screen. He kept ticking off those hundred hour marks. Sometimes he’d send a photo of an airplane he was ferrying from somewhere back to Texas.

Along the line he interviewed with Republic and was offered a conditional employment contract — conditional on achieving 1,500 flight hours. 

And then I saw a video of Sam shutting down an airplane at the conclusion of a flight. That shutdown was with more than 1,500 flight hours as pilot in command.

Sam is 22 years old.

As the rules are currently written, Sam has 43 years of professional flying ahead of him. That is, should he care to fly through today’s mandatory retirement age of 65.

Who knows where Sam will be in 43 years, let alone in five years?

I can’t be more proud of Sam. His path since high school hasn’t been easy. From my perspective, those bumps along the road are what makes life worth living and gives us good stories down the road.

College isn’t for everyone. Sam is a great example of that.

1,500-plus hours is an impressive amount of flight time. And yet, with four-plus decades ahead of him, I can’t help but feel Sam is only nearing the end of the beginning of his time as a pilot.

I look forward to seeing Sam as I board a flight as a passenger and look to the left, into the flight deck, as I always do.

Good luck Sam.