The opportunities

(Start here: The beginning)

1998 was my first year at university, studying physics and mathematics as double majors for a Bachelor of Science. I quit ATC not long after after coming home from the ATC power flying course, but one day a few months later I was tidying my room and came across my notes. Reading through them I noticed that a few of them, with my instructor's name as an author, were subtitled 'Welair Aviation Ltd. Paraparaumu'. Paraparaumu (or Paraparam as known locally) is about 45 minutes' drive away from Lower Hutt. Wouldn't it be great to keep having lessons with the same instructor! So I found a phone number and called them. Sure enough, my instructor was working there, and was happy to take me on for more lessons. Over the course of the next year we covered the syllabus for the private pilot's license. I sat and passed my flight test on 30 June 1999, a few weeks after I turned 19.

Taking some Sunday school kids for a flight, 2003

For the next few years as I worked through my university degrees - bachelors, honours, then PhD - I would go flying once or twice a month. I learned how to fly a bigger plane so I could take three passengers at a time instead of one. I pretty much stuck to the local area, mainly because I was terrified of talking to air traffic control.

In 2005 I completed a PhD in physics and had been given a 2-year fixed term post-doctoral job virtually on a platter about six months before (another story which was completely God's doing). One important thing to note: it was based in London at Imperial College.

When I arrived at Imperial it was orientation week. I went to check out whether there were any Christian groups on campus that I felt were worth joining. Imagine my surprise to see a glider on display in the quad! I signed up without hesitation and didn't mind the 6 a.m. starts on Saturday mornings to be picked up for the drive to Lasham aerodrome.

I had just under 9 hours' gliding experience from my ATC days, but all of that bar two short flights was from an aero tow. At Lasham they use a winch for launching, which takes quite a bit of getting used to. Although I clocked up another 9 flights during the year I was there, still to this day I have not flown solo in a glider. But being part of the club allowed me to get my aviation 'fix'.

Feeling excited about flying in a glider again, Oct 2005

After a year at Imperial, an opportunity arose that was too good to turn down - moving to Stanford University in California to continue the rest of my post-doc there. That was a great experience in terms of what I was able to learn, but it came at a cost of personal sanity. At one point I had the choice of extending my stay for another 12 months, and was seriously considering it. But after a five-month period where I had maybe 3 weekends off, I decided enough was enough and that I would go home to New Zealand. Again, God had paved the way well in advance for me to transition seamlessly into a permanent job as a research scientist when I arrived back in August 2007.

Within a couple of months of getting back home, Mum had convinced me that buying a house was a better option than renting, and I had found a place that I quite liked. The sale went through and by October I had a house, complete with a brand new mortgage. Financially it made sense to try to pay that off as quickly as I could, so I let my pilot's license lapse (since I was overdue for a medical and a biennial flight review anyway).

Over the next few years occasionally the topic would come up in conversation. 'Yeah, I've got my private pilot's license,' I'd say.
The response would usually be, 'Wow, cool!' Oh yeah, ten points to me on the awesomeness scale.
Then, 'So how often do you go flying?' Ba-dum! Minus five.
'Well I've let things lapse while I pay off the mortgage. But once that's gone I can always get back into it.'

Next: The call