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Bethalto, Illinois – October 4, 2007 – Sarah Dugan doesn’t waste time.
The former EAA Young Eagle turned 17 on Aug. 21, 2007, earned her Private Pilot Certificate on Aug. 29, and gave her first Young Eagle flight to friend Abby Bodenstab of Fosterburg, Illinois, one day later.
Aviation has always been a part of Sarah’s life. Then, how could it not be when you have a father, David Dugan, and a grandfather, Wayne Dugan, who fly?
“I thought it was normal to fly,” she says. “I was in third or fourth grade before I realized that not every kid had an airplane hangar.”
Still, Sarah, of Bethalto, Illinois, said she didn’t really become interested in aviation until she was 11 or 12 years old and went to her first EAA Young Eagles rally to volunteer with her grandmother. “I had no clue what it was all about,” she recalls. “But I had a blast helping register kids and working with the pilots and so forth.”
After that Sarah started going to EAA chapter meetings; soon, the chapter sent her to the EAA Air Academy. “Once I went to the camp for a week, I knew I wanted to do something in aviation with my life; I didn’t know what. In fact, I still don’t know for sure.”
Today, Sarah is an EAA student member and a member of EAA Chapter 864, as are her father and grandfather. Together, they own a Cessna 182 and are about 75 percent finished on a Steen Skybolt.
She currently flies a Cessna 172, but is training in the 182, and has about 140 hours in the air.
While Sarah is proud of her accomplishment, so are Dad and Grandpa. “It’s pretty neat that we’re able to fly together as a family,” she says. “Whenever we’re together as a family, like on the Fourth of July, the women go to the kitchen and talk about cooking. But I go outside with my dad and grandpa and we talk about flying.”
A senior at Metro-East Lutheran High School, Sarah said she continues to help at Young Eagles rallies or EAA events. “Every event that our EAA chapter holds at the airport I try to make,” she says. She’s done everything from teaching groups of Boy Scouts about the physics of flight, to working registration, to showing airplanes where to park.
She knows that she wants a career that centers on aviation. “I’m trying hard to get into the U.S. Air Force Academy and, hopefully, become a fighter pilot. But if I don’t make it, my next goal is to somehow keep flying.”
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Sarah Dugan after passing her check ride to earn her Private Pilot Certificate on August 29.
Sarah wasted no time in sharing her Young Eagle experience. On August 30, she became a Young Eagles pilot when she flew her friend, Abby Bodenstab on her Young Eagles flight.
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