The Flying Six-Pack

Aviation has long been a part of my life and the life of my family going back many years. None of us would carry the love for aviation we do today if it hadn’t been for my grandpa, Ralph Swanson.

Grandpa Swanson was a master sergeant who served 22 years in the US Air Force. His career in the USAF was phenomenal, including over 500 combat flight hours and thousands more flight hours as a flight engineer aboard a broad variety of aircraft—including the F-4. Not only did my grandpa serve long, hard and proud, but he was also the recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross within the USAF because of the heroic combat missions he had flown in unarmed aircraft over the jungles of Vietnam.

So, as you can see, it was within him that our family’s love of aviation began and has led to a generational journey of taking to the skies, beginning with his two sons, Jamie and David Swanson (my uncles), who bought their first airplane just out of high school to begin their training. Their example of passion and proficiency led the next generation to join in the adventure, starting with me.

At the age of 15 I began my flight training and flew my first solo at the age of 16, getting my private pilot certificate just after my 17th birthday. The passion and enjoyment of aviation began with my grandpa, was nurtured by my uncles, and has only grown stronger and more exciting over the years.

The generational love of the skies didn’t stop with me, though. In due course, David’s two sons, Chase and Seth would also train and receive their private pilot certificates as well—both training and then adventuring in their family’s Cessna 150. And, the circle was completed with Jamie’s only son, Joseph Swanson, not only completing his flight training—just a couple of days apart from his cousin Chase—but also being an honored recipient of a $10,000 EAA Ray Foundation scholarship.

You know a person can be fortunate to meet a family with one or two pilots in the mix, but it is on rare occasion, there are six in a room. In our family, we have an active “six pack” of family pilots, which might just be something for the record books today. Aviation is in our blood and one might say we have caught the bug, but it’s truly what brings us together as a family.

From hangar flying at the family grass strip (MY95, Swanson Field) in central Minnesota, to cross-country adventures to Ohio, Pensacola, or North Carolina, we love seeing family, making memories and the thrill of each throttle-up, take off and fly-by. The love of aviation brings us back together whether it’s in the air or on the ground. I would love to tell more of our story to the world of aviation—the simple, hard, adventurous and beautiful. It’s all been entirely worth it.

You can follow Trent Palm on Twitter, @aeroTpalm. Share your own “family flying” story with us by an email to: edit@flyingmag.com.