Having reached the point in my career where the primary focus was a driven motivation to add more airline-appropriate digits to the total time column, the entries of flying a Super Cub during that period brought back fond memories. I got as many handshakes that day as my farmer student. We listened to him bumble his way through ATC communications, eventually managing to request the obligatory three takeoffs and landings. It was a gratifying moment the day I dared to solo him. The charter pilots and administrative staff would snicker. He was eager to learn despite the fact radio phraseology was his biggest stumbling block, often resorting to his familiar CB slang. This particular student was a wealthy farmer who arrived at the FBO in Syracuse, always with lace-up work boots, sometimes wearing cut-off jean shorts or maybe overalls. I grinned at one of the names entered in my logbook.

Why did anyone trust a 20-year-old kid with barely 300 hours to teach them how to fly? As my nostalgic review continued, now with a professional Master logbook, the faces of my students started to materialize from the pages. Other entries showed my commercial, instrument and CFI check rides. After the check ride, he scrambled out of the airplane within seconds of parking. I still remember the designated pilot examiner rushing me through the practical test in Seneca Falls, New York. My Private Pilot check ride came a little more than a year from solo. I literally broke a piggy bank to make it happen.Īfter sweeping hangar floors and then earning the minimum wage of $1.85 per hour as a line boy, I finally squirreled away enough money to get me as far as my first solo five months later. The first logbook entry was my first lesson, flown in a Cessna 150 at my local airport near Syracuse, New York. But it wasn’t until the age of 15 that I was truly bitten. I received a certificate that entitled me to a pilot interview with my current employer 20 years from the date. The aviation bug attacked when I was 6 years old, after flying aboard a Lockheed Electra accompanied by a cockpit tour. I skimmed the entries of my first logbook, the pages yellowed, the spine starting to separate from the cover. Even with the research being a bit tedious, I began to embrace the process. Although I have flown a C-172 periodically throughout my flying lifetime, I couldn’t find a specific entry until I literally blew the dust off some old logbooks. The type rating was part of the qualifications necessary to obtain the equivalent of a Private Pilot license. Who knows where that door will lead to next.As a requirement for our upcoming flying safari trip in New Zealand, I had to produce evidence of a “type rating” in a Cessna 172. “If they ask one more question and develop one more ounce of curiosity, then they can start to open that door,” said Shoffner.

Some will be selected and shared from the International Space Station. While at Crayola Experience in Chandler, he urged future astronauts to use their imagination to think about what it would be like in space and share that through art or poetry in a contest. He’s slated to be the pilot for Axiom Space’s mission to, in part, educate remotely about life in space and lay the groundwork to establish the first-ever commercial space station. That created a path for him to study all that was necessary to become a pilot, a race car driver, a STEM educator and eventually an astronaut.Ĭoming this spring, Shoffner will lift off with three others for 12 days to the International Space Station. Shoffner’s imagination led to a vast interest in space as a young boy. “When you encourage that, then you see what the real person is, and then we can teach to that,” he said. Starting there, the possibilities are endless. So, he’s on a mission to encourage young minds to use their imagination. “As much as I aspired to (be an astronaut) at the time, for some reason I didn’t pursue it to completion,” said Shoffner.Īs a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education advocate, John realizes the distractions to deter a childhood dream could seem as vast as space itself these days.

Nostalgic air mail pilot characatures