Retired at Sixty. Flying at Sixty-One.

Bill Garrett worked thirty-seven years in insurance. He spent a good portion of those years at airports, waiting on delayed flights, watching general aviation aircraft land and depart from the GA side of the fence. He always noticed them.

"I used to watch those little planes and think, someday," he told me. "And then someday got further and further away."

Then he retired. And someday became now.

Zero Hours at Sixty-One

Bill joined our club before he had a single hour of flight time. Most clubs don't take zero-time students — the liability concerns, the insurance complications, the learning curve that seems steeper than it is. We do, because we believe the barrier to flight should be lower, not higher.

His first flight was in October. By December he had his first solo. By the following August he had his private certificate.

I asked him what surprised him most about learning to fly.

"How much of it is mental," he said immediately. "I thought it was going to be hand-eye coordination. It's not. It's thinking ahead, staying calm, trusting the training. I can do all of those things. I just had to learn that I could do them at altitude."

What He Says to Other Late-Starters

"Don't wait for the perfect time. The perfect time was twenty years ago. The second-best time is now."

Bill currently has 140 hours. He's working on his instrument rating. He flies the club Cherokee every chance he gets.

The insurance career is officially over. The flying career has just begun.