A Repeat Offender Gets Back Into the Sky
Published on December 2020
Allow me to introduce J.P. His aviation story will curl your hair. But it starts with him growing up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. J.P. found rural life both tedious and penurious, so he skipped college and joined the Army. He stayed in the army sixteen years and deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and other charming locales ten different times. He was “blown up” the first time in 2005 but went back to work a year later. Eleven years later he was seriously injured again. He lost his right leg below the knee, some vertebrae, and part of his hand. He still has shrapnel inside his body. But by 2019 both his logistical issues and medical issues were sufficiently resolved that he was able to working on his flying skills. That’s when the FAA’s bureaucracy gummed up the works.
