A parenting rite of passage is teaching your child to drive.
Parents can feel anxiety when their child moves into the driver's seat and the parent becomes the passenger. But it’s something completely different when your child starts flying planes.
On a recent spring morning, I stood on the tarmac at the Ann Arbor Municipal Airport, trying to steady my nerves. My youngest daughter, Sara, had just landed in a tiny two-seat Diamond to take me up for a flight. It’s a single-engine plane, and my first thought was: this thing is small. I wasn’t quite ready to climb in, so I stalled with a few questions.
“Would you state your name and title?” I asked, slipping into interviewer mode.
“I’m Sara Johnson, and I am a private pilot,” she replied confidently.
I smiled. “Also… my daughter.”
She laughed. “What? Crazy! When were you going to tell me this?”
I teased back, “Now seemed as good a time as any.”
I asked her when she first knew she wanted to learn how to fly a plane. Sara told me it was around eighth or ninth grade. A friend of hers was taking flying lessons right here at the Ann Arbor airport.
“It hadn’t really occurred to me that people could just do that,” she said. “But I thought, yeah, that’s something I want to do.”
And here she is now, about to take me up in the sky. I asked if she’s nervous.
“Only because the weather isn’t perfect,” she said. “But we’ll be fine. You can trust me.”
A fuel truck rolled by, and Sara joked, “Gotta love the smell of 100 low-lead avgas in the morning.”
Before we board, I asked for final instructions.
“Don’t touch anything inside the plane,” she said.
Then she amended the instructions, slightly: “Okay, if you see another plane and I don’t, speak up. But otherwise? Don’t touch anything.” I asked: how do I alert her, do I just scream? She’d prefer I use my words.
Getting into the aircraft required a bit of yoga: stepping up onto a pedestal, grabbing handles just below the cockpit glass, balancing and twisting into position. Once we were seated, Sara walked through the passenger briefing: shoulder straps over
our arms like a backpack, buckle in the center, lift to release. Seatbelts are required for takeoff, landing, and taxiing—she’s required to say that, even if she can’t make me buckle up. (I do.)
“Don’t touch anything inside the plane," Sara said.
I asked if there’s a handle to grip like in a car. You know the one—the “my kid is driving” handle. There isn’t. I’ll have to rely on trust. Fortunately, I do. Sara’s not old enough to buy a drink, but she is certified as an airframe and powerplant mechanic and works for a major airline. She doesn’t just fly planes—she fixes them.
We taxied to the runway.
“Diamond 37 Echo Echo, holding short two-four at Alpha One. Ready for departure,” she radioed to the tower.
“Cleared for takeoff,” comes the response from the tower.
Just like that, we lift off the ground. A smooth, gradual climb to 2,500 feet.
“There’s Kroger,” she said, pointing out landmarks. “And there’s our house.”
“It all looks so different from the air,” I said, marveling at the perspective shift.
“Mom’s home!” she exclaimed, spotting my wife’s car in the driveway.
We’re flying under visual flight rules, so no formal flight plan is required. “We’re just cruising,” Sara said. And we are.
She gave me a quick radio communication tip from her flight training: “Who, who, where, what. Who? Who I'm talking to. Who I am. Where I am, what I want. Like: ‘Hi Mom, it’s Sara. I’m at the mall. I need money.’ That’s how you structure it.”
I laughed. “Glad you know who to call for money.”
We fly for about 90 minutes over southeast Michigan. The skies are quiet. In a small plane, you feel the air currents, the movement, the wind—a more intimate ride than any commercial jet.
I’d watched other small planes land while we waited to go up, their wings swaying back and forth in the breeze. Now it’s our turn. Sara radioed again: “Ann Arbor traffic, Diamond 37 Echo Echo, final two-four.”
“Let’s slow down,” she muttered. “Because we are going mighty fast right now."
I braced myself, but the landing was smooth—smoother than some commercial flights I’ve taken. Still, she apologized.
“Oof, I'm sorry,” she said as we hit the runway.
There’s a moment in every parent’s life when the shift becomes clear. You’ve led, you’ve taught, you’ve worried. Then one day, your child steps forward, takes the controls, and you find yourself letting go, not because you have to, but because they’ve shown you they’re ready.
Sara is flying her own path now. And I’m proud to be along for the ride.
