National Aviation Day is observed each year on August 19. This day is dedicated by Presidential Proclamation to those who helped pioneer aviation in the United States and promote interest in aviation.
In celebration of this special day, we have asked a few of our members what aviation means to them. We received some great ones. Happy National Aviation Day from all of us!
National Aviation Day represents one our largest personal achievements. It is the struggle of blood, sweat, and tears we share with a small population of wind chasers. It is a multi-generational hobby and profession, all with common goals. I always know that I'll meet a friendly face at any airport I explore. I wouldn't trade my last 20 years for anything.
Vernon Van Cleve
AOPA # 01343836
Aviation to me is, quite simply, freedom with a grateful and enthusiastic heart of humbling gratitude, for the privilege to exercise this glorious form of motion is honored and respected.
I love aviation and the perspectives of life that it brings each and every flight.
Steven Richards
AOPA # 01051289
Flying has been my passion and love of my life. I learned to fly in my younger years and developed my love for it at that time. I started with soloing in a Cessna 120 tail wheel on a grass strip in small town Iowa at 18 years old. Today, I am 73 and still current and flying. I enjoy taking my grandchildren up for rides. Flying is my hobby and I get out whenever possible. Today, in fact, I got in one full hour and brushed up on landings and take offs. The total pleasure flying brings to me is endless. I hope to continue as long as possible.
Dennis Bergeson
AOPA # 04275846
Aviation means a lot to me. It means that I have the talent to be a great pilot. It means that I am one of the many who hold an FAA approved Pilots License. It means the freedom to get to some place that I would not drive to. It means the chance to experience views that would otherwise be unattainable from the ground. It means that I need to experience continuous training to become better tomorrow than I was today. It also means a little of the pleasure I get when someone says to me, "You're an airplane pilot - Wow.”
John Foley
AOPA #09690474
I have been a Pilot for more than 50 years and have utilized aviation for GA business travel and pleasure. I still enjoy pushing the throttle(s) forward for takeoff and enjoy the freedom that flying provides. My ongoing flight training keeps me involved whether it is in the cockpit or classroom. With the privilege of my certificate comes my responsibility to remain safe, proficient, and current. At AOPA, I have met numerous wonderful aviation folks over my many years of membership. It is truly a great organization.
James A. Fry
AOPA #00413643
To me, aviation means freedom. What else might you consider it if you were up amongst the clouds? It also inspires understanding and learning. Most of all, it allowed me to commute 800 miles to follow my dream girl right up to marriage 38 years ago.
Ed Manda
AOPA # 00549529
I have wanted to fly ever since I was a boy of 8 or 9. I started flight training at age 30 and soloed, but soon ran out of money to continue. At age 54, I got my Private Pilot - Glider license. I am now, two years later, working on my sport license in a Van's RV-12. Flying is the culmination of a lifelong dream and I'm finally doing it! It is accomplishment and the joy of flying to me.
Mark Champe
AOPA # 07563223
I used to lie on the lawn as a little boy, watching the birds fly overhead; mesmerized by the way planes were able to mimic these series of complex movements. And I'd dream. I wanted to be up there too, in that vast blue that held my imagination.
Everyone always told me I'd never fly for too many reasons: I was blind without my glasses, my health was terrible (I had tuberculosis and a few other illnesses), and the economics in our area weren't that promising. But I wanted to fly. I knew I couldn't be a commercial pilot. I just wanted – no, I had to know what it felt like to fly an airplane.
In my early twenties, I saved on lunch money by brown-bagging it for a year. I quit dating for a year and I car- pooled for that same time period. Eventually, I earned my private license.
I remember my first flight alone as a licensed pilot, the best flight I had when I took my parents up over our little city, the flight when I tried to impress a date, and so many others. I never lost the feeling for the thrill of flying.
I don't think I ever felt I was the most brilliant person on this earth, but to take a two-thousand pound piece of metal and fuel, fly it through the sky, over mountains and cities, then be able to land it well is one of the most incredible feelings a person can have. Even after 30 years of flying, every flight feels just as awe inspiring as did the first. I can only imagine what Orville and Wilbur felt.
Alan Haacke
AOPA # 01015615
It is a lifestyle that gives me the freedom to come and go as I want! My wife of 50 years is the best co-pilot anyone could ask for; it's family time in the cockpit! Our Mooney is hangered at 2R4 Milton FL and is always ready to fly when we are. It's a quick trip to visit the grandchildren or a weekend getaway to the Bahamas! There are no crowds, road blocks, or long security lines at 7,000 ft!
Terry Ogle
AOPA #00775860
Ever since I was a child, I loved looking up and watching aircraft go by. To me, aviation means an uncommon freedom that helps us to enjoy uncommon views and places. Currently, it serves me as a great convenience to travel to family across our state and still have time to enjoy more of the day. There are no words to describe getting my private license. There are also no words to define the beauty seen from 2,500 feet over the country sides of our country!
Victor Goicoechea
AOPA #01381517
Aviation - it turns out - is my life. This is a bit of a surprise since my family was not heavily involved in aviation. My Dad got his license in 1942, but was so busy being the best Dad ever that he rarely got to fly. When I went to university, I got a degree in Fine Arts. Go figure. Now I am almost 60 and have had such an interesting career starting with skydiving, then onto skydiving at air shows, seven skydiving world records (one of which still stands!), flying and instructing, and the airlines.
I am a petite woman, so the whole process has been an "extra" adventure. I was told time and time again that I'd never make it. For whatever reason, I paid the naysayers no heed whatsoever but ploughed ahead. Aviation - particularly as a career - is not for the faint of heart.
These days, I have what might be the best flying job ever - I fly skydivers in a big, fun, turboprop aircraft, and people throw themselves out the back with big smiles (and occasional screams for the first timers). I also went back to my first love - flight instructing. Everyone should do something important with some of their time. I consider teaching people to fly to be one of the most important jobs in the world. Let's face it - nothing is cooler than flying!
Captain Sandra Williams
AOPA # 00996228
Aviation has been a part of my life for many years. Although I don't fly as often as I like, I am building my own aircraft that is very near completion and rent in a club that I belong to. I like the skill set that flying has instilled in me, such as the need to be as precise as possible to remain safe, and the extreme elation that is felt when you grease on that perfect landing or cross that checkpoint at the precise time and place where you planned to through advanced planning. It is an addiction that I constantly feed by finding a way to utilize flight for as many family functions as possible. Thanks to AOPA for helping to retain our freedom of flight. Since my first flight 30 years ago, when I hear an aircraft fly overhead I have to stop what I am doing and take a look. Now I am trying to pay it forward with my son and other youths.
Jason Gage
AOPA # 05892913
August 19th a great day for many reasons. It was Orville Wright's birthday, and it is also my birthday and National Aviation Day. I got my private rating in 1971 and have been an AOPA member for at least 45 years. I rented planes until 2000 when my son bought a Gramm and AA1A. I flew that for 8 years until he sold it. He is a caption for Tropical Ocean Airways and they operate Cessna Caravans out of Ft Lauderdale, throughout the Bahamas, and in New York City in the summer. I haven't flown since 2008, mainly because of the high cost of renting and the hassle and expense of a third class medical. I have been following the effort AOPA has made in getting medical reform and am glad to see it finally achieved. I got tired of waiting and bought a 1946 J3 Cub in February, flew it until May 16th, and then had a hip replacement. My target date to fly again is August 15th. I fly under Sport Pilot rules and love my Cub and that it qualifies as a Light Sport Aircraft. My son was an instructor at Jack Browns Seaplane Base and I got to fly in a Cub on floats a couple of years ago, but I bought a tail dragger. I love flying and reading about aviation and am grateful for an organization like AOPA that has done so much to promote general aviation including the safety aspect. Keep up the good work.
Jim New
AOPA #00451822
Aviation to me is an escape from the everyday worries. It's an escape from the busy life, a chance to leave the surface of the earth and explore new things, see new places, and meet new people. Aviation to me is not only a way of transportation, but also a way to meet new friends and share common interest, to meet other people that stare skywards when they hear the sound of a jetliner. Aviation to me is my life.
Kris Whaley
AOPA # 09064646
I feel like "I have done it all" in aviation. I have lived the dream. As a man of 70 years, a pilot for 42, and about to "hang it up," that is a great feeling. Europe, South America, Alaska, the east coast, and many places in between, I have seen the sights and used general aviation well, and not only for me and my family. I have done a lot of public benefit flying to in an effort to pay back a bit for this great privilege and experience.
Gerald "Jerry" Blank
AOPA #00576447
Aviation has been the fulfillment of a most wonderful life. From the initial training, getting VIP's transported in Vietnam, Airline passengers to loved ones, vacations, and business to recreational flying in retirement, aviation HAS BEEN my life. It has been a great life; I cannot imagine life being more. Thanks to all that have helped me have such a GREAT life.
Ron Mulhern
AOPA # 00801042
What does aviation mean to me? Most succinctly, freedom.
There is nothing like the ability to essentially go where I want to, when I want to, even if I don't always exercise it. I have spent significant time in China and while communism is dying a slow death there, when my friends asked about what kind of restrictions I faced, they were amazed by my answer. And I always loved taking them for a flight when they visited and allowing them to take the controls themselves for a while.
Of course, that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the other benefits -- STEM education, the wonderful aviation community, simply seeing the world from a different perspective, and so on. My most favorite part is sharing general aviation with those who haven't experienced it before.
But to me, that all can be tied up in one word: Freedom.
Peter Bianco
AOPA # 02572121
My aviation passion began in 1939 Seattle when a biplane flew low over our backyard, entrancing the 4 year-old below. They tell me I refused to go in the house for four hours, sure that the plane would return. When it didn’t, the family consoled me with the notion that one day I could learn to fly. That started me on a life-long quest to read whatever I could lay my hands on about airplanes. Building/flying gas-powered models scratched the aviation itch until my piggy bank held funds for my first flight, taken in a Piper Cub on floats off Lake Washington.
Further progress was temporarily derailed by discovering girls, then college took all my funds. Finally I enlisted in the NAVCAD program where forever (despite not finishing that training) my need to fly grew and festered until earning my private and commercial licenses and instrument rating. One day while visiting friends at El Mirage field in SoCal, I spotted a beautifully polished Luscombe 8C, bought it and spent the next 38 years flying and maintaining that beautiful bird. Sadly age and family health matters led to parting company with 77K two years ago, but the flying fever remains and provides wonderful memories of flights and friends along the way.
My advice to youngsters, start flying as early in life as you can manage, then fly often and savor the joy of it. You won’t be sorry!
Greg Reynolds
AOPA #00511233
Aviation, to me, means freedom. Here at home in the U.S., it is the freedom to be a hundred miles away in an hour, to visit someone three states away and still be home by dinner, and, just for a while, to soar above the petty pace of the day-to-day. Elsewhere in the world, it is freedom from days of slogging along jungle paths, freedom from axle-eating potholes and roadside checkpoints, and freedom from hunger and medical deprivation; out there, the miracle of flight is often part of a greater miracle wrought by those who undertake it in service of another. The freedom of flight, however, is dependent upon the freedom to fly, and for that reason I’m grateful to organizations like the AOPA that work to ensure that the privilege of flight remains within reach of as many people as possible.
Brian Alton
AOPA #04037219
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