Jaden Newman

“We were ‘motor-heads,’” Jaden Newman, now 18, said of her family. “We were into dirt bikes and snowmobiles and boats.”

As Jaden and her brother Dustin, now 21, grew older, the family added paramotors and airplanes to its motorized collection. “We didn’t have TV,” Tanya Newman said, “but we watched plenty of Flying Cowboy YouTube videos. We started out watching Tucker Gott with his paramotor and thought it looked fun, so we invested in three of them.”

They took a four-day class to learn how to operate the paramotors, which are strapped to a pilot’s back and require a running start to achieve flight.

“Due to lots of problems with engines and altitude, we didn’t stick with that form of flight very long,” Tanya said. “We decided airplanes would be more practical than paramotors. That’s when we shifted our focus to bushplanes.”

Jared started his training first. He got his private pilot certificate, then Jaden and Tanya earned theirs about six months later, on Jaden’s birthday in January 2020. Jaden then got a tailwheel endorsement and bought an experimental CubCrafters Super Sport Cub 2009.

“Jaden was certain she wanted to pursue a career in aviation,” said Tanya, “so she then enrolled in Sling Pilot Academy in Torrance, California, to pursue her instrument, commercial, and multiengine ratings. I moved to Torrance with her for the nine months it took for her to complete the courses.”

During that time, Jared made a trip to Berryville, Arkansas, to look at an airplane for sale. He saw a man wearing an “ArkanSTOL” T-shirt and asked about it. That question and the ensuing conversation opened a new world to the Newmans.

With the ArkanSTOL 2020 event only two weeks away, Jared called Jaden and Tanya in California and suggested they fly in Jaden’s Cub to Byrd’s Adventure Center in central Arkansas for the annual STOL competition. It was the first aviation event Jaden and her parents had ever attended.

As a new pilot, Jaden surprised even herself when she came away with second place in the light sport category, bested only by her Flying Cowboy hero Steve Henry, who is now a mentor.

Because Dustin was stationed in Anchorage, Alaska, with the U.S. Air Force, he was unable to watch his sister compete in the 2020 ArkanSTOL competition, but with an 18-day leave scheduled, he was determined to make it to the 2021 competition. He spent the first 10 days flying with his father, before flying with his sister to Farmington, New Mexico, where he got his private pilot certificate and Jaden added AGI, CFI, and CFII certificates. The two then met their parents at Byrd’s Adventure Center for ArkanSTOL 2021, where, for the first time, Jaden competed against her father in the light sport category. Jared took first place; Jaden took third.

“I like competing against Dad,” Jaden said. “It adds a challenge that’s not there when competing against other people.”

As a charter pilot, first for Clemens Aviation, and currently for SouthWind Global Aviation, Jaden now lives apart from her family in Kansas.

Tanya says she misses her daughter—and son, too—but believes her children are achieving the healthy independence they were meant to have.

“I don’t really know how it happened so quickly,” she said, “but I’m proud of Jaden and can’t wait to see what she accomplishes next.”

Sheila Harris is a freelance writer who lives in southwest Missouri.