Jamie,
Thanks for the great article encouraging to fly.
Please allow me to share a retrospective of my flying experience.
I’m a Pilot (ATP) myself. I think I qualify for all categories of indivual that you have described…
In a few words, aviation runs in my veins and to illustrate it graphically, I quite understand how birds see things from above!
Early in my childhood my brother and I would be elite passengers on a Beech Musketeer taken on “flying missions” with our dad who would combine his love for aviation with work: in those days he ran a fishing business and would borrow that Musketeer to go to Cumana, a sea city on the northeast of our beloved Venezuela. Those were the late sixties…
In 1979 I got my Private Pilot Certificate on the first Summer School at Oklahoma State University while enrolled for Mechanical Engineering. But that was it: I had to complete my Major before doing anything else… There was neither time nor money to go further on my flying…
Years later, running a brick factory that had survived almost every possible crisis, ( sort of a Mario’s world game) I wanted to do more in aviation. So I enrolled in a flying school to become a Commercial Pilot here in Venezuela. It so happened while building small budget houses participating on one the housing programs enforced in the country back in the 90′s…
So it was finally time to begin loging fast and good flying time.
…And I got my first aviation job: Air photography for the mapping industry! A great experience! 15 years had already gone by since that Summer School in Stillwater, OK…
Light twins, Beech Duke, King Air 100, fixed wing contracts for the Oil industry and alike went on until a ten year shift of professional work occurred: I accepted to manage a factory… I forced myself to be happy doing that job and holding that responsibility but I knew that I was sacrificing what I wanted to do most: Flying!
And then the Universe conspired again: on July 2007 two great and special Gentlemen offered me to share a dream: to fly with them their future Citation Mustang. On July 2007, almost 30 years after that Summer School in Oklahoma, I found myself again in the US; this time in Wichita, learning how to fly a Jet! My life totally changed: my aviation jumped to a very professional aviation, it also reflected immediately on my family well being but best of all: on my Soul and Spirit: I’m glad to say out loud that I’ m happy and ( please excuse my vanity) that I am one of the best doing my job!
Being all this said I can conclude that Aviation is definitely a unique profession, it provided me peace of mind and satisfactions and that if my Son wants to follow my steps I will definitely support him!
Can you imagine how grateful am I for life and for all those who have participated throughout all these years helping me to achieve this fabulous aviation?
So Chief, please keep encouraging aviation. It is unique indeed
Jean Gabriel Ducournau
