Do you remember driver’s ed? Long days of sitting in a packed classroom full of rambunctious teenagers itching to burn rubber, hours of terribly outdated safety videos, sitting in the back seat of a family hatchback holding on for dear life as another nervous teen takes a routine corner on two wheels.
Those were the days.
There’s a group of young guys from the Concord area who are going through a slightly different type of vehicle training – a kind that’s a lot more complex, and a lot more fun.
We’re talking about Mason Elle-Gelernter, Jack Rogers and the Summers brothers – Devan and Tristen – and they’re all training to get their wings at Concord Municipal Airport through Concord Aviation Services.
The airport trains people to get all different types of pilot’s licenses. Unlike operating cars, where one license clears you to drive pretty much anything, there are many levels of pilot licenses: student (medical certificate), recreational, private, instrument and commercial. Like many college classes, these must be done in order, and one is a prerequisite for the next.
Although there are certain thresholds that must be met, earning a pilot’s license is more than just hitting the minimum hours required. If the instructor feels you still need work even after reaching the minimums, you’ll do more work until you’re ready.
The guys we met last week were all still early in their flying careers, training for their student, recreational or private licenses. Most people aim for at least a private license, since the ones below that don’t offer much freedom – a recreational license is for pilots who only want to fly locally (within 50 miles of a home airport), in the daytime and in clear weather. But you have to start somewhere.
Devan Summers, 16, took his first flight – which was in one of those open-topped stunt planes – when he was 8 through a Young Eagles demo flight program, and he was hooked.
“When I was 14, I started taking lessons,” he said. “At first we spaced flights out, but this past year we started doing flights about once a week.”
And now that he’s tasted flight, how does he feel?
“I really like it – it lets me explore the area.”
His brother, Tristen, 14, has also caught the bug – he just started a few weeks ago and he’s equally ecstatic about getting in the air. It may or may not be a coincidence that the brothers have a father who flew in the Navy for 20 years.
Then there’s Elle-Gelernter, a 17-year-old who started taking flying lessons in Concord when he was 10.
“For me it started at the Christa McAuliife aviation camp – I took a flight there,” he said. Now he’s working toward his private pilot’s license, which he hopes to someday use in a career of aeronautical engineering – he’s the only one of the group not terribly interested in flying as a career.
Rogers, however, is. The 19-year-old just got his private license after about two or three years of training, and he has his sights set on his instrument license.
“I really want to make this a career,” he said. “I’m looking into the service academies.”
Rogers let us in on a little secret about training to become a pilot: It’s expensive. He’s been training for a few years now, and between books and tests, ground training and flight training, one should be prepared to spend about $10,000. It doesn’t all have to be paid up front, though – you go class by class with no long-term commitment, so it’s at your own pace.
If you’re interested in learning to fly, call 228-2267 or go to confbo.com.
