Michael Shanklin & Brother Daniel’s Record Setting Flight
Yes, you’ve heard correctly. My brother and I flew airplane as kids,… really young kids. My brother from age 7 and myself starting at age 8. It all started with our grandfather Kenneth Shanklin.
Our grandpa had been a pilot for a majority of his life including being a navigator in the Air Force. After leaving the Air Force our grandpa didn’t stop flying, just the opposite. He ended up purchasing his own plane and flying the family all over the US (and to do charity work in Mexico as well). Ken realized that if he had a heart attack and the family was onboard, without anyone else knowing how to fly, the entire family could easily die. He at first wanted to make sure we had flying lessons, not to learn all the functions for flying, but to make sure we could land the plane and survive. ….so we started taking flying lessons.
The year was 1990. At the time my brother Daniel was 7-years-old and I was 8. We had to go through a minimum of a month of ground lessons (not in a plane) learning the ins and outs of flying (aerodynamics, common issues, how to restart on stalls, pre-flight checklists, proper radio communications, and much much more). After numerous daily classes that lasted well over a month on the basics of flying, radio communication, flight orientation, flight plans, us boys were ready to learn how to taxi, use the rudders, ailerons, wheel brakes, engine power, and a few other basic controls.
I remember how anxious we both were to get up into the air and to actually fly the airplane. Remember, both of us had “flown” our grandfathers planes after they were already in the air previous. He would allow us to take the controls from him, although we weren’t allowed to do anything drastic with the controls. At this point we were ready for the next step in our flying careers. It only took a couple of flights by the flight instructors before us boys were allowed to take-off without assistance. It didn’t take much longer after that before we were allowed to land the planes solo as well. Mind you, we weren’t just 7 and 8-year-old boys without anybody in the cockpit with us. We had to have licensed instructors/pilots with us the entire time, but we were in control all on our own. We took to flying like a fish takes to learning how to swim in water. It seemed very natural for us, especially after flying numerous times with our grandparents previously and having pilot type discussions with our pilot family members. It wasn’t long until we were comfortable with the fact that should our grandfather have health issues, one of us (or both working together) could land our grandfather’s Piper Saratoga Turbo.
The record setting flight
After learning how to fly, after months of lessons and successful takeoffs and landings, and after we earned the admiration of our instructors, it was nearly the Christmas holidays and we were pilots that couldn’t get licenses for another decade, but we were pilots nonetheless, licenses be damned. My brother and I spent Christmas of 1990 with our grandparents in California. When we woke up for Christmas morning, one of the presents we got from our grandparents was an offer for my brother to set the record for the youngest kid to fly across the country. I had just passed the age of which I could have attempted to beat the record. My grandpa said he always regretted not getting me started first and how it would have been special for my brother to have beat my record, but by that point the time had come and gone. …but at least my brother could set a new record, he was still technically young enough.
Let the planning begin!
Within a couple of days we were deep into planning the trip. Yes, a 7 and 8-year-old were planning a cross country trip in an airplane. It included flight plans, weather reporting and contingencies, news/media scheduling, hotels and rental cars, planning for the instructors and observers. We had to have adults call and reserve these things as no one would take us children seriously if we just called up out of the blue. To ensure that the record was set, we had to have separate observers in the airplanes to make sure that no licensed pilot/co-pilot would touch the controls. Our instructors were simply passengers for the flight.
Time was of the essence. Daniel only had about a month left until he’d be too old to complete the record setting flight. The flight was to be from Lindbergh Field (now San Diego International Airport) to Kitty Hawk, NC. Kitty Hawk was where the Wright brothers made their historic first flight, so it was a fitting place to set the cross country record. We didn’t fly the entire distance in 1 flight though. News agencies and media wanted us to stop in numerous larger cities along the route for camera shoots and interviews. When we first set off on the flight nobody knew who we were. After the first leg of the trip, a few hours flight into Arizona, our faces were everywhere on every major national broadcast, and it was like that for not only the entirety of the trip, but for weeks and in some cases even months after the record was set. The middle of our trip was the most memorable for us boys. It was our hometown, San Antonio, TX. When we landed in San Antonio all you could see from the sky were thousands and thousands of people at the gate where we pulled in after landing. The only event that topped that along the route was the final stop in Kitty Hawk. The local schools (including our school) had taken a field trip to be there for our historic flight. When we landed we had hours and hours of interviews with just about every news channel that existed at the time. CNN, CBS, ABC, Fox (can’t remember what Fox News was called back then), NBC, etc… the works!
David Letterman video of Michael & Daniel Shanklin in 1991 after record setting flight across the country.
We ended up flying into Kitty Hawk, NC about 5 days later after stopping at other major airports along with way for various ceremonies and news interviews. We landed both of our airplanes the day before my brother’s birthday crowning Daniel the youngest person to ever fly across the country! Upon landing in Kitty Hawk, the sea of people in attendance was truly soul shaking. Thousands and thousands of people had come to attend the historic landing that would crown my brother the youngest person to fly across the country, ever, in all of history. We earned the “Key to the City”, were invited onto numerous talk shows, and enjoyed all the fruits that our successful planning and implementation had produced. It’s a moment I will never forget, a gift from our grandfather that I’ll probably never be able to repay to anyone else due to it’s uniqueness and how it will last with our family and in the history books forever.
The last person who attempted to break my brothers record was Jessica Dubroff. She ended up perishing in that attempt due to ice on her wings when taking off from Cheyenne, Wyoming (ironically the birth place of Michael and Daniel’s mother). Since then no other person has attempted to break the record, and after Jessica’s death the FAA has clamped down hard on anybody who might attempt such a record.