So what did you do on your sixteenth birthday?

http://www.theunion.com/article/20100401/NEWS/100339927/1001&parentprofile=1053

We all have milestones in our life. For most of us at sixteen it is getting a car driver's licence. Just think how far you could have gone on that first drive if you had been flying.

If “routine” describes someone's birthday, it probably wasn't all that great.

“Routine,” though, was the way Grass Valley's Bob Donahoe wanted son Chris' 16th to go. The two spent Sunday morning practicing for Chris to earn his pilot's license before father stepped onto the tarmac and sent his son into the sky alone for the first time.

“It was kind of a non-event,” Bob said of his son's successful solo flight at the Yuba County Airport in Marysville. Chris took off, landed, repeated the process and shook his dad's hand afterward. Both walked away from the two-seat Cessna 172 F happy.

Bob, a commercial pilot, said routine is preferable to any other outcome. “In aviation, we want every day to be uneventful.”

By earning his wings, Chris joins a long list of Donahoes who fly.

“All the males in my family have been pilots. My dad flies, my grandfather was a pilot, I have a cousin who flies for the Air Force, an uncle...”Chris said. “I've always known it's what I wanted to do.”

He also joins a small number of young pilots.

Sandy Mills, who owns Alpine Aviation, a flight school out of the Nevada County Airport, said most new pilots are older who have the time and resources for flying lessons.

“With the really young kids it's hard because they've already got studies,” Mills said. “It's like taking a college class on top of what you're already taking.”

Chris, a sophomore at Marysville High School, trains with his dad and said he was driven to get his license as a way to strengthen his application the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he hopes to attend college. The school requires prospective students to meet rigorous academic standards as well as participate in a number of extracurriculars.In addition to following his dad's instruction, Chris participates in the Civil Air Patrol at Beale Air Force Base, a cadet program for aspiring pilots. “I'd like to fly any kind of fighter for the Air Force,” Chris said. “Hopefully an F-15 or A-10.”