Leon Fenemor recently gained his Private Pilot License (PPL) for his 17th birthday. We caught up with him to chat about his journey so far.
Tell us about your experience with flying and what sparked your interest?
Ever since I was little I’ve always been interested in flying…since I was five I’ve wanted to be a pilot. I live by the airport so I always saw planes taking off, so maybe that started my interest. I learnt everything (I could) about planes and my first time flying a plane (instructor trial flight) was around age ten.
At 15yrs I did all my exams and my licence, then just before my 16th birthday, I started all my proper lessons to go solo (all in a Cessna 152 – a little 2 seater). From 16yrs to 17yrs, I did a lesson a week, and then took my PPL flight test on my 17th birthday.
What was the test like?
You go out with a special instructor and do heaps of different manouvers …like a driving test! (You cover) everything that is in the syllabus, make sure it is all good, and it was! When you go solo on your 16th that means you can fly by yourself, and the minimum age is 17 to get your licence (meaning you can take passengers). I’ve done like 20 hours in the last two weeks of just flying people around!
What is your next step? …Commercial?
You need 200 hours for your commercial license, I’ve got 80 so far… I’ve got a few more exams to do, I’ve completed half of them, and you just have to be 18. So the goal is to do it again on my 18th birthday. I’d like to end up on long-haul with Air New Zealand but you have to build up the ranks… start off with small sky diving planes, then move to domestic, then international!
Are there any locations in the world that are on your bucket list? Any airports that you really want to fly into?
Not really I just want to fly heaps of different kinds of planes.
Do you have any advice for anyone else who is interested in learning to fly?
It’s quite expensive, so you definitely need a part time job! I was able to fund it all from working at McDonalds afterschool so it is doable. If you are thinking about it, get the exams done first and that kind of sets you up for already knowing a lot before you do your first lessons…Money and exams!
By Sophie Musso