How One Good Deed Led to Another

A few days ago we were up in San Francisco interviewing an extraordinary guy named Glen Davis. Glen, who is a photographer by trade, learned to pilot an airplane when he was 18. In 2006, he literally took Jessica under his wing and began teaching her to fly. It was an act of faith, and a lot of people who knew Glen thought he was being foolhardy to take on a student who — well, you know the story, she had no arms! Even Glen’s insurance company balked when they heard he was working with Jessica, insisting that they’d only insure his plane for half its value if there was an accident. But Glen didn’t mind about his insurance company, or about the comments from anyone else. I couldn’t for the life of me picture what would have given him so much faith in Jessica, and it turns out there’s a story there — a really good story of friendship. You see back when he was in seventh grade Glen became best friends with a boy who had polio who lost the use of his legs (and in fact had to have one amputated). When Glen got his pilot’s license he took his friend flying, and that’s something they continued to do over the course of years and then decades. His friend always wished he could learn to fly but it didn’t seem possible, because even with the use of prosthetic legs he couldn’t control the rudder pedals on Glen’s Cessna. Then one day Glen heard about the existence of the Ercoupe, a plane which does not have rudder pedals and which can be flown just with the stick. Now here’s where the story becomes remarkable! Feeling like getting a pilot’s license would be the best gift he could ever give his friend, Glen went out and bought an Ercoupe. And eventually, his friend got his pilot’s wings. Flash forward a year later. The story ended up in an aviation magazine, one that a young woman with dreams of flying but no arms — who had been told her only chance of learning to fly was to find an Ercoupe and an instructor — happened to read. Long story short, when Jessica cold called Glen Davis he didn’t do what 99.9% of the world would have done, and just shake their heads and hang up the phone. He listened, said “yes maybe it’s possible, why not?”, took two weeks off of work and invited Jessica to come to Florida to train with him. In the end they wouldn’t be completely successful — Jessica didn’t solo under Glen’s tutelage due to some technical issues with his Ercoupe (it was too heavy to qualify as a “light sport aircraft”). Nevertheless, Jessica learned enough from Glen and gained enough confidence that when she got another opportunity with the right Ercoupe and instructor Parrish Traweek — another generous pilot who took a chance on Jessica — she succeeded. It just shows that sometimes in life, one good deed can spawn another, and that can create something else positive. In the case of Jessica getting her pilot’s license, it changed not only her life but has inspired people all over the world.