Teens build plane

in record time

By Seth Truscott

Editor

Brian White and Kevin Lein may be only 16 years old, but that hasn’t kept them from cruising the wild blue yonder.

Both Fall City teens, who attend Mount Si High School, are budding pilots seeking their student licenses. White and Lein spent a couple of recent weeks building an experimental aircraft, and last month, took it up for some much-needed stick time.

While their friends sometimes “duck and cover” when they hear about the boys’ sky-high interests, for White and Lein, flying means freedom.

“I’ve always been interested in flying,” said Lein, who’s been up in planes since age 8. His family raised birds, including an ostrich once, and Lein loved the fact that they could fly and be free.

“I’ve always wanted to be with them, flying,” he said.

“I’ve been flying since I was born,” said White. His grandfather, Richard Pankratz of Fall City, took him up from an early age.

There’s a long history of flying in Brian’s family.

Pancratz, a former airline pilot, had his first flight when he was 5.

“We joke about how he never recovered from that first flight,” said Judy White, Pancratz’ daughter and Brian’s mom.

Pancratz got his license by washing airplanes at little airports in Oregon, in exchange for flying lessons and fuel. He retired a captain from Delta, and now lives on an airstrip in Fall City. Brian and his grandpa are working on refurbishing what will one day be Brian’s plane, a 40 horse-power, 1937 two-seater Cub with a fabric skin. The plane is so light, you can pick up the tail and push it around.

White and Lein aim to turn their interest into a career as commercial pilots. They are working to pay for the lessons and plane time to get the next level of license. Once they get a pilot’s license, then they can apply for instruments-only rating, allowing them to fly at night and in bad weather. The instructor sends them up with a hood around their instrument panel, so that they can’t see outside the cockpit.

Judy White said she’s not worried about her son’s aerial career path.