How I Became a Pilot: Part 5 Joining the Reno National Guard and Becoming a Pilot
For a long time it looked like I would not be able to go to the Guard yet. In fact, my first application was denied outright. I know it was never looked at because it came back in less than 48 hours, and the Air Force never does anything that fast.
But with some consistent support from my current, and future leadership we got through the process and I was able to leave Active Duty about 8 months before the end of my commitment. I was super excited to be back on the West Coast, and to get to fly in the mountains around Reno.
When I was going through the process of joining the unit I mentioned a desire to become a pilot, but based on my age, and their needs I was told it was not going to happen. Honestly, I was okay with that as I genuinely love what I do, but I figured it didn’t hurt to ask.
Adapting to Guard life took some getting used to. Financially it was far more complex than getting a paycheck on the 1st and the 15th, but we have figured it out. The culture is also very different since the majority of the people in the unit are part-time and thus are not available to do training or for flying at a moments notice like we were on active duty.
Maybe most importantly, the Guard is also one big family. An incredibly dysfunctional family at times, but the dynamics of a group of people who work together in one place, for in some cases 30+ years, can get very interesting.
Families know each other, and not just spouses and children, but siblings and parents and other extended relatives. While it does have its challenges, there is a bond that is undeniable, and something I personally find valuable.
I was also excited to be flying in what is the best local flying area anywhere in the world. Though recently I have decided I may need to alter that statement as Alaska is pretty darn amazing, it is incredible to rage through the Sierra Nevada mountains on a regular basis.
About six months after I joined the unit they decided they were going to have a board to convert some navigators to pilots. Initially, I was hesitant as I was 36 and pretty set in my ways. The idea of going back through 18 months of training with 23 and 24 year olds was not appealing. I reached out to some trusted friends and after hours of discussing the practical side of it all I was still not convinced.
Then a great friend, who apparently knew me better than I knew myself at the time, appealed to the emotional side of it all and it tipped me over the edge. Essentially he told me that for as long as he had known me I had wanted to be a pilot, so why would I not even try to do it. Let them tell me it wasn’t going to happen, but I at least needed to try.
As part of the preparation process for the board I decided that I needed to finish my private pilot’s license. We had just gotten our tax return, and I convinced my saint of a wife to let me use most of it to chase my childhood dream. I figured that even if the pilot thing in the Air Force didn’t work out, I would still be a pilot in the eyes of the FAA and I would have fulfilled a dream.
I immediately set to work finding an instructor and preparing to take the written test. The first time I went up in the air with Nikk I knew that I had made the right choice. I really can’t even put it into words, even more than a year later. It awakens something inside of me that nothing else does. I have written quite a bit about all of that training so I will refer you to past posts to read more about that.
I was not able to finish my license in time for the board, but I was proud of myself for getting as close as I did. If it weren’t for weather I would have finished, but I don’t think it would have really made any difference with the results.
The time for the board came and I felt really good about how I presented myself and what I wanted to accomplish. When the results were given I was not surprised as they selected the person they knew better who had been around longer. While I was disappointed, I once again knew that things always seem to have a way of working out for me and my family.
After a few more weather delays, I was finally prepared for my checkride and got it scheduled for 22 June 2018. You can read about the details of that memorable day here, but as you are likely already aware, I became a private pilot on that very day, and it was maybe the most proud I have ever been of myself on a professional level.
To finally do something that I had talked about for more than 30 years was simply incredible. The path was much longer than I had anticipated and there were many times that I thought it would never happen. With all of the twists and turns that life takes, I had given up on fulfilling that dream. Like so many people I had moved on to something more practical and left those childhood dreams behind.
It happens to all of us at some point, whether we realize that at 5’9″ we are never going to play in the NBA, or that despite our love for the violin we will never play at Carnegie Hall. At some point most of us concede to reality.
I have often struggled with this as I believe that you should never give up on your dream, but that at the same time, at what point is it keeping you from doing something else great because your other dream just isn’t going to happen.
Recently I have come to feel that it isn’t that you need to give up on your dreams completely, you may just need to tweak them a little. If you are a five foot tall adult you will never be a center in the NBA, but maybe you can become a coach, or a trainer, or a writer for Sports Illustrated, or a sports agent. If you don’t have the eyesight or stomach to be a fighter pilot maybe you can work for an airline, or an airport, or do maintenance on airplanes, or write a blog about them that becomes wildly popular and now you get to go for rides in those same fighter jets.
I firmly believe anyone can achieve true and lasting happiness in this life by pursuing their dreams. As you can see by my path, it was windy and bumpy with a few pit stops and 180s, but I did it, I became a pilot.
I have flown more than 1500 hours as a navigator all over the world in a C-130 and seen sights that few other people in the world will ever see. I have provided life saving airlift to people who needed it. I have helped fight forest fires saving people’s lives and homes.
I don’t say any of that to brag or be prideful. I say all of those things to point out that I have lived an amazing life. I have fulfilled so many of the dreams that I had as a kid with my face pressed against a window at DFW looking at airplanes with my dad. I just didn’t even realize that I had some of those dreams. I knew that I loved airplanes, and that I wanted to fly, and once I actually pursued that dream I found happiness and purpose that I did not have before.
That to me is true success. I still have a lot of things I want to do, and fortunately I am still young enough to pursue many of them, but I feel successful with the things I have already done. I have done things that money can’t buy, and I know that the experiences I have had are priceless.
So if you have a dream, go after it. You may need to tweak your expectations a little, and you may not get there as fast as you would like, but when you put your heart into something and you chase it because it awakens part of your soul in a way that nothing else does, you can’t go wrong. You will find happiness, and that is what I found when I became a pilot.
