Teen flies solo on 14th birthday at Brampton-Caledon Airport

June 21, 2023 · 0 Comments

By Zachary Roman

With goal-setting and hard work, a teen made his dreams take flight in Caledon.

Lucien Distler flew an airplane solo on June 9, the day he turned 14, at the Brampton-Caledon Airport. This makes him one of the youngest people to ever pilot a motorized aircraft alone.

“Waking up that morning, I was looking forward to it,” said Distler. “It’s something that I worked up to for a long time. Once you get to that point it feels really good to actually go up.”

Distler said he wasn’t nervous for the flight since he was prepared — if for any reason he didn’t feel ready to fly, he knew he could push the flight back another day. While flying on his 14th birthday was a goal that greatly motivated him, Distler said safety is always the first priority.

From March up until his solo flight, Distler completed over 20 training flights and logged 30 hours of flight time. In the weeks leading up to his birthday, Distler was booking flights nearly every day. This was necessary as in March, almost every training flight Distler had booked got cancelled due to weather. Pilots at the Brampton Flying Club, which operates out of the Brampton-Caledon Airport, told Distler it was some of the worst March weather for flying ever.

Being one of the youngest people to fly solo makes Distler feel very accomplished. He actually didn’t even tell his closest friends that he was training to fly solo until he’d done it, as he didn’t want to put any extra pressure on himself.

Marco, Lucien’s dad, said it was important for Lucien to direct his energy towards flying the plane rather than managing expectations.

On the day of Distler’s solo flight, things weren’t looking good. After waking up at 5:30 a.m. and checking the forecast, it looked like it was going to rain all day. Additionally, wildfire smoke was rather heavy in Caledon at the time. However, fate was on Distler’s side as a two-hour window appeared where it would be safe to fly.

“We came down and we took that opportunity,” said Distler.

For the first time someone flies solo, there can’t be any rain or adverse conditions that would make the flight unnecessarily difficult. This rule is in place to make sure a pilot’s first solo flight is as safe as possible.

Before a pilot can fly solo, they have to take a supervisory flight. This is a flight in which they take to the skies with an instructor they have never flown with before, so there is no bias coming from the person giving the OK to fly solo. Distler did his supervisory flight four days before his solo flight.

Distler said his entire journey began with a dream when he visited the Oshkosh air show in Wisconsin with his dad. He thought, “wouldn’t it be cool for me to fly a plane?” and that’s when the plan was set in motion. Even before setting his goal to become one of the youngest people to ever fly solo, Distler had a lifelong love of aviation.

Marco explained he and Distler took Distler’s dream and began to put it down on paper to make it tangible. They made a plan and set specific date targets for specific goals like written tests. When obstacles like bad weather got in the way, the father-son duo would just brush it off and stick to their plan, making any changes if necessary. From the start, there was always a “Plan B” and even a “Plan C.”

Whenever a certain milestone was approaching, Marco would bring it up each morning, and Lucien would share his progress. It helped keep his goals top of mind, and since they built in time to try tests again if they didn’t work out, there was never too much pressure. Thanks to Distler’s hard work, he was able to stay on schedule and was ready to fly solo on his 14th birthday.

“Dreams don’t just come true,” said Distler. “You can have a dream but you can’t leave it as a dream for long. You have to say, ‘now I’m serious about it, let’s map it out’. That’s how you can make things happen.”

Marco said you will always need to make corrections when moving towards your goals.

“You can literally expect headwinds,” said Marco.

Now that Distler has flown solo, he said his passion for aviation is as strong as ever. He’s still considering a commercial pilot career but said he will get a university degree first.

“If even for one person, this could give them the motivation to make that leap to pursue aviation, I think that would be wonderful,” said Distler. “I think this shows people that it’s very feasible… as long as you have that motivation.”