A pilot’s logbook records hours, ratings, approaches, and currency. But it can’t capture the flights that become lasting memories—the surprise trip with parents, a Cub ride with a daughter, or a simple flight that becomes a treasured story for someone else.

He never became a pilot, but he’s spent nearly 70 years loving airplanes. Then, after years of searching, he finally got the chance to meet his aviation “movie star”: a Piper J-3 Cub.

From flying USAF fighters and corporate jets to sitting behind a desk, pilot John “Kid” Davee thought his military jet days were behind him—until an offhand joke led to flying the legendary BD-5J micro-jet. Here is how a unique five-phase checkout and a tight squeeze in the cockpit prepared him to fly one of aviation's most fascinating experimental aircraft.

I make custom challenge coins for a living. Many of my clients are aviators—military squadrons, flight schools, and commercial crews. I don't fly myself, but after more than twenty years creating coins for pilots, I've come to know aviation through the stories people choose to commemorate.

A childhood fascination with Ozark Airlines' DC-3s at Quincy, Illinois, inspired a lifelong dream of flying. More than two decades later, fate brought Joel Turpin back to the very same airport—but this time from the left seat of a DC-3.

My work involved testing aircraft carrier catapults and arresting gear, both shipboard and land-based, as well as visual landing aids, ejection seats, crash testing, and some unusual projects such as ejection seats and arresting systems for helicopters. I sometimes get the impression that visitors are skeptical that anyone could have been involved in such a wide range of projects, including things they never knew existed.