2007 Scholarship winner

Why I want to be a pilot

Essay by Corrine Simons

I remember the day my life changed. I was seven years old when my family took me to my first air show. It was my first major exposure to airplanes that I can remember - and I was enthralled. My parents, too, were enthralled when I looked overhead at the flash of silver wings above me and said definitively, "I want to do that." Since that day I cannot remember a time when I have wanted to pursue any other career. My only question has been, "How do I get there?"

When I was twelve years old I joined the Civil Air Patrol Cadet Program and immersed myself in the realm of Aerospace Education. I knew that there were programs available that could help me fly and I also knew that the only way to get there was to progress in the program and apply for everything I could find. On my 14th birthday, my grandmother bought me an entire flight package that included all the books I would need to earn my Private Pilot's License, a logbook, and a Jeppessen flight bag. Ecstatic, I devoured the books page after page. I took them everywhere and memorized much of their contents. But one thing kept me on the ground: money.

In the summer of 2006 I was accepted to Civil Air Patrol's National Powered Flight Academy in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. I had explained to my parents that the event would cost $850 plus transportation and we had been saving all year for it. Upon hearing about my acceptance I was overjoyed. I would finally have an opportunity to get into the air. I might even be able to solo if I worked hard enough. I spent my week at the Flight Academy with my nose in a book and my eyes on the skies. I soloed at 6:30 a.m. on July 2nd 2006 on runway 7. I still remember every detail of that flight, though it would be my last for over a year. But it was a bittersweet day. I knew that, though these flight hours would help me in the future, they would not amount to a private license and I would have to continue training on my own. And training on my own meant forking over the dough. My parents could spend another year saving money, yes. But even a year of saving wouldn't give me enough to continue flying at regular intervals to stay current on top of school fees and other Civil Air Patrol summer programs. My flight bag with all its contents sat, and still sits, at the foot of my bed, waiting.

In the meantime I've been filling out applications for Air Force ROTC and for flight schools such as Embry-Riddle. Attending such a school has always been my goal and being accepted to Undergraduate Pilot Training after my commission in the U.S. Air Force would be my dream realized. With a private pilot's license under my belt I could go on to earn higher ratings while in college and, ultimately, become an instructor pilot in the Air Force and later after my retirement. Hopefully one day I will be able to fly with the Thunderbirds as I saw them that day of my seventh summer.

It has been ten years since my first air show and I haven't missed one since. To say that the roar of engines and the smell of exhaust remind me of the womb is a bit unrealistic, but it seems that this atmosphere is the one in which I feel most alive; it is certainly the one in which I want to spend the rest of my life.