Junior Chase Lehmann spends his time hitting the books, like most students his age — but his sights are set higher because he is learning how to fly a plane.
“You have to study the airspace, you have to study the weather,” Lehmann said. “I have to study what equipment I have to have. I have to study what the equipment does, when to use it.”
Inspired by time spent at a “skydiving place” owned by his uncle, Lehmann began his pilot training last year at 16 years old, as soon as legally allowed. He is working toward earning a private pilot’s license, which requires a minimum of 40 total hours of flight lessons.
“I like how satisfying it is to have a really nice, smooth landing,” he said. “You have to get them perfect.”
There are a lot of less exciting steps and hard work that have to go on before flight to ensure smooth sailing, though.
“For a normal lesson, I just have to go check every part of the plane, make sure there’s no nuts missing, make sure there’s no bolts missing, make sure all the rivets are in place; check the oil level, make sure the fuel is clean, make sure the battery works, make sure the flaps work,” Lehmann listed.
The long checklist of things to do before takeoff can be vitally important.
“You have to check the carburetor heat, make sure everything doesn’t freeze,” Lehmann mentioned. “There’s been countless crashes and accidents and engine failures due to carburetor ice.”
Even so, Lehmann says he’s never been scared in flight, and that his family doesn’t worry too much.
“Planes are safer than people think,” he said.
Lehmann attends “ground school,” where he does the book learning required to get his pilot’s license. Here, he is taught the science and history of various aircraft, the specifications of different airspaces and other practical information. However, he has to balance this flight training with the demands of ordinary high school life as well, which can be challenging.
“My mom said if my schoolwork fell down, I wasn’t going to go to ground school,” Lehmann said.
Good results in both flight training and regular school are critical to his future plans, because he hopes to attend Embry Riddle, one of the biggest and most reputable aeronautical schools in the world.
“After that, I plan on going to the military as a fighter, or whatever else they’ll let me do,” he said.
His hopes of being a fighter pilot are based on his love of flying.
“Fighter pilots get to do the fun stuff, like loops and barrel rolls and all that jazz,” he said. “A normal commercial pilot — I don’t want to say they don’t do anything, because it’s a lot harder than it looks, but they don’t do a whole lot.”