It was a year of many triumphs for young pilots. Twelve-year-old Vicki Van Meter of Meadville, Pennsylvania, became the youngest girl to fly across the Atlantic. Leyland “Lucky” Vittert, 11, of Saint Louis, became the youngest person of either gender to make the same trip. Nine-year-old Rachel Carter was the youngest to make a cross-country roundtrip. Little Frenchman Xavier Gouin, 12, was the youngest to fly across the English Channel. And Baltimore’s 16-year-old Jimmy Mathis, the only one of this group old enough to have a pilot’s license and fly without an instructor, became the youngest solo pilot to cross the U.S.
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Then there was one rather large failure. The crash of an Aeroflot jet in Siberia on March 22, killing all 75 people on board, was blamed on the pilot”s children after a Moscow magazine printed a transcript from the plane’s black box. Captain Yaroslav Kudrinsky was evidently giving flying lessons to Eldar, 16, and Yana, 12.
Must we now also scan the skies above for wayward tykes whose single-engine planes might plow into our homes?
Intellectual ability to fly a plane: “None. To them piloting a plane is a pure thrill, and nothing more than that The thinking of a nine-year-old still has the magical components of early childhood.”
Years to go for a driver’s license: 5
Child pilot’s age: 12
