“Once we got up, it was magical; that would be the best way to explain it,” said Hunter Little, a Zero Time to Airline student.
For six years, Hunter Little’s life was grounded as an employee for academy sports and outdoors.
“Life kinda got in the way,” said Little. “Everything just kind of changed directions, and I focused on my family.”
Until recently, when he decided to give his childhood dream a chance.
“I was sitting with my dad he was like, ‘so, what’s next, so what’s the next thing?’ and I was like, ‘I think I want to be a pilot,’” said Little.
Little is a part of the first class of the Zero Time to Airline program with Thrust Flight school at the North Texas Regional Airport in Denison.
Five out of the first seven students are local to Grayson County.
“Generally speaking, they’re here from the area, they’re sticking around here, they are going to be doing all their training here, and it’s gonna be a great learning experience for them, and I think it’s going to be great for the community as well,” said Nathan Kaplan, Assistant Chief Flight Instructor for Thrust Flights.
The commercial flight school requires students to train for nine to twelve months and instruct for 1500 hours before flying for a major airline.
“I have an adventurous side of me, I really want to go see more like different things as well, but now this gives me the ability and convenience to do it myself,” said Laney Fitzgerald, a Zero Time to Airline student.
Thursday’s take-off marks the beginning of the first commercial flight school at NTRA in more than a year since U.S. Aviation left.
Pilot: “Ready?”
Reporter: “Ready.”
And the start of dreams taking flight.
“I went from a regular job, and so now I’m at something I’ve never done before, and so it’s new, but I’m feeling a little bit nervous, but I’m excited,” said Little. “It’s a great melting pot, if you will, of emotions.”
“After I finished, I cried,” Fitzgerald. “I cried like right after we passed the threshold, I was like ‘I finally did it.’”
