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Following is Xander's story of his experience of learning to fly.
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"I have been flying since 2007 when I was 17. I remember the subject of me learning to fly had come up a few times in my family between the time I was 7 and 17. It always seemed far away and out of reach to me, though. No one in my family was a pilot. Sometime around my 17th birthday -- I don't remember the details -- but I got curious and did some looking into learning to fly. I realized I could actually do it. I could become a pilot.
"As a kid and teen I was super interested in coin collecting, so I had spent all my birthday money and allowance through the years on coins instead of toys and video games. The benefit of this was that my coin collection was now worth much more than I paid for it. When I counted the value of everything, I could sell most of my coins and pay for a good portion of flight training . . . so I did. With that cash in hand, I started flight training, went to work at odd jobs (shovel work and bathroom cleaning is not below a 17-year-old who is paying for flight lessons), and learned how to tune pianos (which I still do). My dad happened to come across an old guy that owned a Cessna 150, who offered to let me fly his airplane for cheap. Between flying with the 150 owner and two different flight instructors (neither of which had much respect for the other), I took 102.6 hours of flight time to obtain my Private Pilot certificate. I wasn't comparing myself to others and didn't realize until later that I had actually taken quite a lot of time to finish training. But . . . I was a PILOT now, and that was the important thing. It felt good.
"The reason I love to fly is the freedom of being able to navigate anywhere. To soar 10,000 feet above the earth with nothing up there but you, your craft, and the wind is serene and exhilarating. It frees the Spirit. I also love flying because the aviation community is very small -- only about 600,000 active pilots in the U.S. -- and the people who are in the aviation world have a strong common bond.
"After a brief break to enjoy my newly acquired Private Pilot certificate, I was right into training again, getting the Instrument Rating in 2009 and the Commercial Pilot certificate in 2010. One of my favorite flights was the long solo cross-country flight (minimum 250 NM straight-line distance) required for the Commercial Pilot certificate. I flew to the The Dalles, OR (KDLS) on the Columbia River, spent the night there in a tent under the airplane wing, woke up before dawn, rode my scooter into town to explore a little, and flew back on a different route the next day. It was a journey I will never forget.
"I started working on the CFI certificate soon after that, and discovered that I had a fear of public speaking. I tried to push through it, but eventually decided to put it on hold. My piano tuning business was starting to become pretty successful at that point, and I knew the pay for CFIs was not very good. I had met a girl and was starting to think about courtship and marriage and how I wanted to provide for a household. All of that kind of conspired against my aviation dreams, and I decided to focus on making money tuning pianos. I got married in 2016 to Gabrielle, and started building a house on 5 acres. Life was going pretty well, but something inside was telling me that I would feel incomplete if I never became a CFI. The aviator inside of me was refusing to die.
"In 2019, with the encouragement of Gabrielle (wives out there, take note, encourage your husbands), I decided to go for it. I started intensive studying and training for the CFI certificate. After pushing through pretty deep discouragement (public speaking still does not come naturally to me), I finally finished and passed the CFI checkride in May 2020. It was an amazing feeling to have finally conquered my fear and gotten something done that was truly difficult for me. It was the best decision I have made in my life.
"If the Private Pilot certificate is a license to learn, then being a CFI is like studying for a doctorate. I know a lot about flying and how to teach flying, more than most pilots do, but I will never stop learning, and I don't for a second imagine that I'm actually good at flying. I'm just less bad! I get to fly and get paid for it, while sharing my love of flying with others. I look forward to each flight lesson I give. Each lesson is an adventure I share with my student as they figure out how to learn and I figure out how to help them learn. I really do love my job. I can't think of a more fulfilling thing for me to do than help other people learn to fly. And maybe, I can help them free their spirits a little in the process and realize their dreams, like I did mine.
"I believe that 95% of the general population has what it takes to be a pilot, if they are given the opportunity and can find the perseverance. It's my goal and Skyborne Adventures' goal to provide that opportunity. Some people no doubt will need to persevere more than others, but everyone is different. We really shouldn't compare ourselves to each other as much as we do. We all have different stories that we are living, and different challenges. Every one person is the hero of their own life story. At Skyborne Adventures, we want to help you unlock your full potential in the world of aviation. Let us help you write Chapter 1 of your Aviation Story."
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