KEARNEY, Neb, (AP) - When Alexis Barth was a child, she watched wide-eyed through the window when her father Gary flew the family in his Cirrus SR22 to vacations in Galveston, Cincinnati and beyond.
“I’d see the clouds up there, and so many things from high above,” she said. “I thought it was cool that my dad could do this.”
By the time she was 14, she wanted to fly, too.
It took nearly four years, but Alexis, now 18 and a senior at Kearney High School, accomplished that.
Two days after Christmas, she got her pilot’s license.
She sandwiched her lessons around going to school, running for the varsity track team, playing the saxophone in the school band, volunteering with DECA, and being a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the youth group at Kearney eFree Church.
“I’d wake up before 6 every morning. I had band, then school. Then I’d go out to the airport and fly. At 6 p.m., I’d go home, have dinner, do homework and go to bed,” she told the Kearney Hub.
When Alexis told her parents that she wanted to learn to fly, they didn’t flinch. Gary, who has owned his plane for 25 years, was excited. He called Kearney Regional Airport and set up her private lessons.
“When you have a passion, and one of your kids wants to do it, it’s special,” he said.
Alexis’ instruction began with ground lessons. Her instructor taught her on a white board. She watched videos on an iPad.
She went up for the first time in a Cessna 172, a small plane used for training. When they were airborne, the instructor allowed her to steer the plane. Gary went along.
“This plane was similar to my dad’s, but it was weird to be in the pilot and command seat and realize I was really going to do this. At the same time, I thought it was really cool that I’d get to be in control,” Alexis said.
Although her pilot training periodically was interrupted by school activities, she worked hard. She studied extensively. She spent 80 hours in the air with her instructor. She took a written test on all the parts of the airplane.
“It was like a test in school,” she said.
As she progressed, she took sample tests online.
This summer, she took a 60-question, multiple choice test that required her to do math, make calculations and do some multi-step problems. She had to know such things as how the engine works, and how to map a flight by plotting it and adjusting for wind direction. She scored a 92 on that test.
She got rusty when she didn’t fly during track season and other times, but she knew how to look up necessary information.
“It’s like driving,” she said. “Once you learn, you never forget.”
Then came her biggest challenge: the “check ride” with Michael Fickel, a Federal Aviation Administration official.
First, he gave her a two-hour oral exam. She had to prove that she knew how to look up information, since she might need to do that while flying.
“In everyday life as a pilot, you can look up things you don’t know, but here, I had to know everything on the spot. A few things were hard to remember, but I passed,” she said.
She then flew with Fickel in a Cessna 172, the plane in which she trained. That flight tested myriad aspects of her knowledge.
Fickel had Alexis simulate requirements for a cross-country flight. She had to map out a route and fly from a mythical Destination A to Destination B. “I chose Winner, S.D. Once he understood that I knew how to do that, he’d move on to the next thing,” she said. Make that a plural “next things.”
“If you take off too fast, for example, you will dive. I had to prove I knew how to correct that. I had to tell him what I’d do if the engine stops working. I had to do a go-around, then climb back up. I had to do ground reference maneuvers, meaning turn around a specific point on the ground while I was still up in the air. I had to adjust for the wind, like when wind is pushing into you,” she said.
About a year ago, when her instructor pronounced her ready, she took her first solo flight. It was brief - she did three takeoffs and landings.
“The next few times, I’d do maneuvers by myself. Then I did a solo cross-country flight. I had to prepare the flight plan and fly according to that. It was really scary the first time. I’d never done anything like that. I’d always had someone with me. This time, I had to trust myself,” she said.
It was nerve-racking for her mother Jenny, too, “but while Alexis was up there, the instructor told me she knew what she was doing. He said, ‘We wouldn’t let her go if it wasn’t safe,’” Jenny said.
Shortly after getting her license Dec. 27 Alexis took her mother, her brother Brant and his girlfriend up in the Cessna 172 “just to show them that I could fly,” she said. She also has a younger sister Brooke, 15.
Alexis said she was a bit jittery when her flying lessons began, “but my parents were definitely encouraging. My dad said to study hard and trust myself.”
Gary, who is president of Barth Financial of Kearney, is justifiably proud. “It was a long process, but I knew she was smart enough to do this and think things through. She had three different instructors, and that could have been deflating, but it was a test of endurance.”
Jenny added, “We’re proud of her for persevering.”
Alexis’s friends found it “pretty surprising” that she wanted to fly, “but now they think it’s pretty cool. It would be super cool to fly friends to a different city or two,” Alexis said.
She will need a bit more training before she can fly her father’s Cirrus SR22, but Gary said he’s ready to have her take the controls on family trips, such as their upcoming spring break getaway to Galveston. “It’s an easy four-hour flight,” he said.
For Alexis, flying will remain a hobby, not a career. After graduating from KHS this spring, she hopes to study marketing or communications at either Cedarville College in Cedarville, Ohio, or Concordia College in Seward next fall. “I want to do like my dad does - just fly for trips or as a hobby,” she said.
She finds peace and joy when she’s flying.
“I like how everything seems so small and peaceful up there. Sunset is my favorite time. You see the sunset and the towns below you, and then the dark turns out all the lights. I like how everything is so small. All my problems are very small up there. I see the beauty of God’s creation,” she said.
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