Flying solo
Aviation school's first solo flight in years
by Simon Whitehouse
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, July 30, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Jeremy Maley will never get this moment again.
The 17-year-old celebrated a major milestone Monday after completing his initial flight training to a point where he can fly a Cessna 172 airplane solo.
Maley was the first of a new, Lloydminster-based flight training school called Border City Aviation, which has been running a satellite program at the Adlair Aviation hangar since June 28.
"You will never forget your first solo and to do it at 17 years old when some people can't even drive a car, I think, is a huge accomplishment," said flight instructor Nic Van Adrichem.
"He has a bright future in terms of flying, that is for sure."
Jeremy Maley, a local 17-year-old, was the first student to get his student licence at the Border City Aviation satellite flight training school. The school has been run at the Adlair Aviation hangar for the last month. Yellowknife has not had an aviation school in well over a decade. - Simon Whitehouse/NNSL photo |
Maley was soft-spoken and humble when asked how he felt about the accomplishment, but he admitted that in comparison to having a driver's licence and a Ford Mustang, he enjoys flying planes more.
He said he got interested in flying because his father was a pilot.
Maley has personally put in about 25 hours of flight training over the past month.
"I went through about 19 exercises, which included steep turns, stalls, spins, emergency landings, regular landings, takeoffs," he explained.
"(Nic) came with me to do two circuits and he left the plane and I then did another two circuits (solo). We went for lunch and then he came back, I did the same thing over again. So I did it twice."
As a result, Maley received a student licence, radio licence and a medical licence to mark the occasion. He said he will continue training throughout the summer to get better at flying planes.
For about the past month, Maley has been at the school every day, weather permitting, and taking flight training for about two to four hours daily.
The satellite flight training school has about six students, according to Steve Watt, owner-operator and engineer at the satellite flight instruction school.
He said the significance of Maley's accomplishment is that hopefully it puts some life back into the joy of learning how to fly planes since Yellowknife has not had an active flight school for at least a decade.
The last flight schools in the city included Air 2000, which ran a school out of the Spur Hangar in 2000, and the Yellowknife Flight Training College run by Air Tindi in the early 1990s.
"Aviation is a pretty big part of the community here, so I think it is pretty cool for him to have that title on his cap that says, 'Hey, I was the first to fly around as a student pilot in a number of years,'" said Watt.
Watt said the school is designed to be very accommodating and anyone at any level is encouraged to contact him at the hangar to try flying lessons.
