As with nearly every little boy, I had a fascination with airplanes. I had loved to simply look up and search for that one marvel in the sky, and had jumped with joy at the sight of just one. Anything that flew, really, I was interested in.

            In my younger years when I had resided in a Chicago suburb, my father and I had amassed a collection of radio-controlled devices. This “scrap pile,” according to my mother (even though it was greatly organized on several shelves), was a healthy mixture of anything controlled remotely: boats, cars, trucks, trains, and of course, airplanes, helicopters, and drones. The latter three always captivated me and had taken up nearly all of my free time, and surely resulted in many “accidents” around the house. It didn’t take long for it to become painfully obvious that this wasn’t just some temporary fascination.

            Eventually, for reasons still unknown to me, we were forced to rid ourselves of this magnificent pile. However, the pile was replaced with something I found even better, a computer. And on this seemingly magical device, was a program called Microsoft Flight Simulator X. I could not tell you how much time I have spent on this, and the same goes for the impact that it has had on my life. Heck, I was ten years old and already making cross-country flights in the simulator. Ever since then, I had sunk a multitude of hours and had invested in many flight yolks and sticks; the interest and enthusiasm with aeronautics had stuck.

            To this day, I have maintained and fueled that same interest and dedication to the field that I had experienced as a young enthusiast. It is my hope that I will be able to continue fostering this passion through a career in an aeronautics or aerospace sector, and begin to fully understand just how much of a miracle powered flight truly is.