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Have you ever looked out your window on a clear day with blue skies and wondered how everything would look from 5,000 feet in the air? According to Andrew Olson, a sophomore aerospace engineering major, it's the only way to see things. Olson got his private pilot's license when he was still in high school, but his interest in aviation is nothing recent. "I was three weeks old on a plane from Syracuse to Jamaica, and I guess it just stayed in my blood," Olson said. "Then I saw Top Gun a year later, and that was that."

Getting your pilot's license is no easy task. To get his license, Olson had to go through a rigorous battery of training and examinations that test everything from radio calls and navigation to more advanced concepts such as torque effects.

"First you have to go to ground school for three weeks so that you can pass the Federal Aviation Administration written test, then you have to go to flight school," Olson said. "After 40 hours in the air with an instructor, you take the flight test, and they either pass you or fail you."

However, flying a plane is not just a matter of getting your pilot's license. Many other factors such as weather and airport traffic conditions influence whether or not a flight is not only plausible, but safe as well. "The go/no-go decision is a really tough part of aviation. It really determines how good of a pilot you are and furthermore, how long you're going to live as a pilot," Olson said. "There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots."

Many people equate flying with a chore — something that is absolutely necessary at certain points during the year and which they don't look upon with a great deal of excitement. So what is it that makes Andrew Olson so passionate about flying? "There's something called the flying bug, and it gets you at a very young age," Olson said. "It infects you, and you just have to fly. It's an uncontrollable, very primitive drive that gets you up there day after day."

Olson also claims that the adrenaline rush that flying a plane gives him can very seldom be matched. "Obviously, if there was no adrenaline involved nobody would do it," Olson said. "Taxiing up to the runway to me is the equivalent of climbing the hill on a roller coaster."

Aside from the adrenaline rush, realizing a lifelong dream also contributes to Olson's insatiable passion for aviation. "I'm in awe of anything that flies, and for me to go up there and look down on everything, it's just great" Olson said. "It's like, I see a bird flying, and I can go up and do the same. It's magic."

With the help of the Hokie Flying Club, Olson was able to bring his hobby with him to Virginia Tech.

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