Miranda Myer made a bit of local aviation history over the weekend at Allen County Airport.
Myer, 16, a sophomore at Humboldt High School, became perhaps the youngest pilot to ever take off and land an aircraft at the airport while flying solo.
The Saturday morning session capped an intense two-day training period for Myer, a student at the Accel Aviation Flight School, which is stationed at the airport.
“I can’t put into words how exciting it was,” Myer told the Register in a subsequent interview.
Myer was at the controls of a 1974 Piper Cherokee, one of two planes used by Accel instructor Rob Jordan to teach fledgling pilots how to fly.
Myer, whose love of flying was detailed in the Register Jan. 16, enrolled at Accel in March. There, she is under Jordan’s tutelage.
Jordan met Myer at a flight show about five years ago, Jordan said.
“I flew with her five years ago and now to have the opportunity to solo her is an honor,” Jordan said. “The solo alone is quite an accomplishment but to solo at age 16 is rarely seen.”
Myer flew extensively Friday afternoon and evening in preparation for her solo flight.
And truth be told, Friday’s session was more taxing, Myer said, because while Jordan was with her in the cockpit, she still did the flying herself.
Jordan directed Myer to take off and land nearly a dozen times.
And Friday’s weather, with a pesky crosswind, added to the degree of difficulty.
“Saturday was almost anticlimactic,” she said. “I was nervous, but I was excited.”
“It wasn’t a matter of whether she thought she was ready,” Jordan said. “I wasn’t letting her fly solo until I thought she was ready, and she demonstrated that she was more than ready.”
Saturday’s solo flight required Myer to take off, fly in a holding pattern around the airport and then land.
The original plan was to repeat the process three times.
