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• Eagleville youth learns to fly alone
By JESSICA CARTER Staff writer

Photo by Angela Stroupe  Lliam McFarlane straps himself into a glider plane at Puckett Field in Eagleville on Sunday. McFarlane celebrated his 14th birthday by making his first solo glider flight.

EAGLEVILLE - Remnants from his birthday cookout lay scattered on a picnic table as Lliam McFarlane climbed into a glider plane. His mother, Kathy, looked on from a bench near the end of the runway. A few seconds later, the distant rumble of the tow plane's engine broke the quiet Sunday afternoon as her son flew by on his first solo flight, a day after his 14th birthday.
 
  "It's really fun the first time you solo because you realize, hey, I can do whatever I want," said Kathy, also a glider pilot. "As a mom, I'm really excited for him. This is just the beginning if he wants to continue with this."
   Kathy and her husband, Bill, own and manage the Puckett Field airport just outside Eagleville. Both have been interested in flying for most of their lives. "As a young kid, I was always interested in aviation. I particularly liked the gliders," Bill said. "It's like being with nature instead of tearing through it with engines and noise."

Gliders are light-weight, engineless planes that are pulled by a power plane called a tow plane to a certain altitude, usually 2,000 feet. They use rising air currents to maintain their height, similar to gliding birds like vultures and hawks. "Since you don't have an engine to worry about gas, some people have flown from here to Kentucky and back without stopping," Lliam said. His mother was one of those people, completing a round trip from Eagleville to Bowling Green without touching the ground.

Since the McFarlanes took over the glider business in 1984, Bill said weekends have been  dedicated to maintaining the airfield and giving instructions. During that time, Lliam had plenty of time to learn about flying. "He'd been at the airport every weekend for his whole life, and been around planes all the time, but he never did express an interest in flying," Bill said. "Finally, last summer he said, 'Dad, I  think I'd like to do that’.", Lliam said his inspiration to learn about gliding came from his family. "Both of my parents fly, and two of my brothers flew, and I grew up in the airport," Lliam said. "I just thought it would be fun."
 
"I used to fly when I was expecting (Lliam), so he was flying long before he got here," Kathy added. Lliam had been training for months before his birthday, flying with his father and several other instructors at the airport. On Saturday, his birthday, he obtained a student license that allowed him to fly on his own.  But hazy skies and light rain made it unsafe for Lliam's first solo flight, so family and friends gathered at the airport Sunday instead. "Kids have very little fear as compared to when they get older. Young kids learn very, very fast," Kathy said. "But some of them aren't mature enough to make the right decisions, so we have to look out for that." She added that the decision to fly solo is a two-step "double protection" process: the pilot has to be ready to go, and the instructor has to believe he's ready to go.

In Lliam's case, she said, his instructors (and his dad) felt he was ready to go months before his birthday, when it would be legal. That was enough reassurance to let enthusiasm push her worries aside.
 
"It's always fun when they do their first solo flight - that's a real transition point," Kathy said. "He's about half the age (I was when) I soloed." Lliam said he's been ready to fly on his own for a while. "I'm not really worried, because they pretty much let you go when they think you're ready," Lliam said. "I was trying to do everything just right - I did pretty good from what I hear."
    He plans to spend most of the summer practicing his flying so he can graduate from the training glider to a more advanced plane. After accumulating seven hours of solo flight and passing Federal Aviation Administration exams, he'll be able to get a glider li¬cense when he's 16.
   Lliam admits this isn't a typical hobby for boys his age, but he said glider fliers of any age can have a good time."All my friends who have been out here and been up in the planes say they'd like to learn if they had the time," Lliam said. "Some kids just take lessons be¬cause their parents want them to. " But if you try to have fun with it, it's a lot of fun."

For more information about glider flying, call (931) 274¬6341.