Flight Training - November/December 2020 - 51

tinations. "It was something I was always interested in, but I never
considered learning to ﬂy myself."
When Remy ﬁnished his freshman year as an engineering
student at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, he was told
summer internships are very uncommon for ﬁrst-year students.
"I thought it would be a cool idea to learn how to ﬂy, and open the
doors to whatever aviation might bring my way," he said. "I want
to spend more time ﬂying with my grandfather. He gets so much
joy from ﬂying. It's a cool way to connect with this passion that my
grandfather has had for the past four decades."
Remy, 20, had suggested the idea last Thanksgiving, and his
grandfather loved it. "He very graciously offered to pay for our
training," and that became their Christmas gift for the year. The
local ﬂying club wasn't accepting new members because of the
pandemic, but the pair found Take Flight was offering training with
appropriate precautions.
With a ﬂexible summer schedule, Remy began on June 22, and
earned his private pilot certiﬁcate September 19. His sister, 24, had
a busier summer schedule and in early October was planning her
solo cross-countries.
Chloe hasn't always wanted to be a pilot. "But it's been something I've been doing with my grandfather for a very long time. It's
a happy memory," she said, recalling a ﬂight around age 4 when her
grandfather asked her to hold the wings level. "I have very fond
memories of my grandfather ﬂying up to pick me up, to surprise
my parents on a fall break. Now that Remy and I are older, the
circumstances turned out to be perfect. I wouldn't wish this pandemic on anyone ever again, but it provided us with a very unique
opportunity."
The siblings trained on the same schedule when they could, and
usually called their grandfather on the drive home from the airport.
"Chloe and I would tell him all the things we learned that day, and
discussed his experiences doing similar maneuvers," Remy said.
"That was a really cool aspect of it."
"We've heard stories from our grandfather's life that we had
never heard before. It's opened up the door to conversations and
experiences that we might not have had," Chloe added. "I feel it's
brought us all closer, in a respect. Our grandfather is just this vast
wealth of knowledge when it comes to ﬂying."
Sevgin's interest in aviation goes back 75 years, to his childhood
in his native Turkey. In 1963 he began ﬂying lessons during his
lunch hour, at an airport near his office in New York. He earned his
private pilot certiﬁcate in 1968, adding commercial, instrument,
and seaplane ratings. Sevgin has owned several airplanes over the
years, currently has a Cessna Turbo 182, and has ﬂown to Alaska,
the Bahamas, and Nova Scotia, among other destinations.
He is incredibly proud of their decision to learn to ﬂy. "I was
hoping that one of these days they would come up to me and say,
'We would like to be pilots.' That's exactly what happened," Sevgin
said. "They are adapting themselves to new situations, ever since
they were kids. One of the reasons is they've had the opportunity
to do things out of the ordinary-like ﬂy in small airplanes. It's very
important that we introduce our kids to all parts of our lives, and
aviation should be a part of that." FT
mike.collins@aopa.org

AOPA.ORG/FT

http://www.AOPA.ORG/FT

Flight Training - November/December 2020

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