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Lucho Caballero (12): I first got involved [with aviation] because of my dad. My dad flew in the Canadian Air Force many years ago, and he would always show me all these pictures of him in the back of the plane, doing loops, doing tricks, and I feel like that’s what really started my passion for aviation.

I took a Discovery flight, which is basically where you just get into a plane with an instructor, and they let you fly around a bit, and that’s kind of what made me fall in love with it even more. I feel like just the feeling of being all the way up in the sky and being able to control the plane, control where you wanna go… the feeling is really freeing and it just lets me get up there and just do what I want.

I had a really big community of people here at the airport, of friends, of family. I think something I live by is how you should always be meeting new people and making connections with them, especially when it comes to flying but also in a lot of different other fields. There’s always people out there who really wanna help you.

One of the biggest challenges for me was the pandemic. I took my first discovery flight right before COVID hit, and immediately after it hit, it was lockdown and everybody had to stay at home. So my biggest challenge when it came to the pandemic was staying motivated and being able to come back a year later and continue doing it. At home I never stopped thinking about flying. 

I feel like that [struggle] made me feel even more motivated because now I had an open door to continue my training and so I took advantage of it. And I went flying maybe once or twice a week and that’s a lot because you have to balance that with schoolwork and stuff. And eventually it all paid off.

I got my license in June of this year. For me, it was very exciting to actually change from learning to having my license, because now I could fly whoever I wanted and I could fly wherever I wanted. One of the first things I did was, I took up some of my friends, I took up my family, and we went to places. We went north up California, a good hour north flying. It was really exciting to see how proud they were of me, to have made it this far.

Girlfriend Laura Bastos (12): I actually have flown with him in the plane one time. It was the first time he flew anybody. I know Lucho from everyday Lucho, and then there’s pilot Lucho, which is like, he’s super cool, he’s really locked into his work. He’s really dedicated.

Close friend Daniel Wu (12): I feel like Lucho, he likes to goof around a lot, both in and out of the classroom, but when you really need him to be there, I think he’s ready to lock in, if you need him, which I think is a really good characteristic to have.

Lucho: My journey of flying really relates to how I think about life because it’s an example of how when I’m dedicated to something, I really go at it and I don’t stop pursuing it. I think that that’s an important way to think, because dedication is what lets you reach your dreams, and in this case, if I wasn’t dedicated, I wouldn’t have gotten my license at all and I wouldn’t be able to do any of this.

Laura: When he wants something done, he gets it done. He commits. Sticking to something that’s hard and that takes up a lot of your time, shows a lot of his responsibility, and again, his dedication to everything that he does.

Lucho: I think my dedication to flying has also shown how much I really care about things, and how I care about getting them done, especially done the right way without cutting corners, and I really wanna bring this philosophy into my life as I get into college and into a career.

Former pilot Anthony Silk: People who are successful pilots do have to be very sure of themselves. You can’t be timid as a pilot. The fact that he has that sort of self-assured personality makes him more likely to be a successful pilot.

Lucho: To me, [flying] also unlocks the ability to just show my adventurous side and show how I like to explore. There’s always new things to learn. I feel like when you learn one thing you shouldn’t stop there. You should keep going. For example, I just learned in this plane, but now I’m learning how to fly in a different kind of plane, a bigger plane.

I think my dream career would really be just flying around and exploring the entire world. I’m also really interested in how airplanes actually work, and I think I’d be super interested in designing my own and getting to fly those as well and I feel like that would be a great career that I could pursue because I would never get bored of it.

Don’t stop learning, never stop learning. There’s always more you can do.