Ravenwood High School senior Clint Green sits in the cockpit at Smyrna Airport. He only needs an FAA check-ride to get his private pilot's license.

By CAROL STUART
For Brentwood Home Page
While most high school seniors are worrying about exams, graduation and college plans, Ravenwood’s Clint Green is about to reach an even loftier goal – earning his private pilot’s license.

"Are you crazy? You're about to fly a plane." -- Clint Green, on thoughts before his first solo flight

In fact, on the recent “Spring Day” at RHS, Clint went to Murfreesboro to take his airman’s exam – passing the test with flying colors – and he’s finished all his training hours.

All that’s standing in his way is a check-ride with an FAA examiner, which he’ll probably take in the next couple of weeks after having a mock-ride with his Wings of Eagles instructor in Smyrna.

“Basically what just went through my mind was, 'Are you crazy? You're about to fly a plane,' ” he recalled about taking his first solo the summer after his sophomore year.

“My next thought was what goes up must come down and you have to get it down.”

Clint has been on this journey for about three years, and his current flight instructor, Gabe Henkel, said it’s very rare to have a student pilot before graduating high school.

“Just getting off the ground is what I find to be the most -- I'm not really nervous -- it's just the most intense part of it,” Clint said. “But once you get up into the air, it just all goes away and it's just a peacefulness that comes over you. Landings are always fun.”

Most people at Ravenwood probably don’t know that Clint is about to get his pilot’s license, because that’s just his personality – his dad describes him as intense but introspective. His family and close friends know, but for instance his study hall teacher Mary Campbell found out recently in a casual conversation with Clint and got permission to tell BHP about his achievement.

“When he took his first solo, he didn't tell anybody about it. I wasn't there, nobody was there,” said his dad Mark Green, an attorney with the state Department of Commerce regulatory board.

“After it was over, this is when he was taking lessons at Murfreesboro Aviation, and he did his first solo, he told us all about it. Of course, my jaw hit the floor, and I was a little upset that I wasn't there. But then as I thought about it, I thought that's just Clint. He'd rather do it in front of nobody as opposed to having a big fanfare, a bunch of people out there looking at him.”

"Looking down at the ground ... that's everything I've ever known, and to be above that and to see that is pretty cool.” -- Ravenwood senior Clint Green

Most parents are worried about that first time their kid drives off in the car by themselves – not taking off in an airplane. Clint actually flew before he got his driver’s license, his dad said.

“The first few times I've seen him solo, it's been very nerve-wracking,” Mark Green said. “I don't tell him that, but especially the first time that I saw him solo.

“When I saw him take off I kept thinking and kept looking to make sure the nose was still up. I was just thinking that's not a lot of material between him and the ground. So that's always been kind of tough. It is easier now, but you still get that apprehension.”

His mostly once-a-week flights are weather-dependent, and his mock-check ride was delayed by the air show at the Smyrna Airport last weekend. But Clint’s logged more than 50 hours and finished his last two solo hours in the past month or so.

“Every input that I put into the aircraft has a certain outcome, and I am in total control because there is nobody up there with me,” he said.

“Just looking down at the ground, I mean that's everything I've ever known, and to be above that and to see that is pretty cool to me.”

 Clint doesn’t have anybody in his family that flies, but rather got interested when he was age 3 while taking a Southwest plane trip from Nashville to Chicago.

“I wasn't really scared to death, but I really didn't know what to think about it because it was my first ride,” he recalls. “So, when I got on there, I just so loved it. I pretty much decided from that point on that's what I wanted to do.”

His family gave him an introductory lesson for his 16th birthday.

“He has wanted to fly since he was little, developed an interest in it really early, just the fascination of airplanes and flying and airports and all different things,” his father said.

“As he got older, it was something that stayed with him. Like when I was a kid, I developed interest early in baseball and football and that stayed with me as I got older, but with Clint it was aviation and it just kind of grew in a natural progression.”

“Instead of spending the thousands of dollars up front, we've done it progressively ... Not only is (it) a hobby but educational and possibly career preparation.” Mark Green, Clint's father

It’s not an inexpensive hobby, though. Flights started out about $150 and some have gone up to $200, Clint said. He said his family has been really supportive, and his father said Clint has also contributed some to the lessons.

“Instead of spending the thousands of dollars up front, we've done it progressively,” his dad said. “Certainly I view it as something that not only is just a hobby but educational and possibly career preparation.”

Henkel also works with students in Middle Tennessee State University’s aviation program who are around 18 or 19 years old, but who have already graduated high school. Clint will graduate on May 28 – around the time he will probably get his pilot’s license.

“It's very, very rare that you have somebody Clint's age, who is still in high school, still trying to go through that, and I know he works a part-time job,” the flight instructor said. “So he stays really busy, yet he's been very, very focused and very committed to meet on a regular basis.”

A Williamson County Honor Band tuba player at Ravenwood, Clint also plans to try out this summer for the Notre Dame marching band. He will major in business at Holy Cross College at Notre Dame, Ind., where students can participate in some activities for the South Bend sister university.

Henkel said he doesn’t have to repeat explanations or demonstrations with Clint– and that Green will go home and study when he’s told to do so.

“If I show him something and explain something to him, he's got it by the next try,” Henkel said. “He's a very fast learner. I have been impressed because just students I've worked with in the past, just to give you an example, I'll explain something to them or I'll demonstrate something for them and then it'll probably take one or two more repeats on my part before they actually get it.”

Clint did his first solo flight under his previous instructor in Mufreesboro, but it wasn’t endorsed correctly in his logbook so he had an official re-do. Henkel also learned that Clint’s shirttails weren’t cut after that flight – a tradition dating back to the days when instructors without radio equipment sat behind pupils in tandem in older planes and tugged on their shirttails for directions.

“Tradition has it that once you solo for the first time, the instructor is supposed to cut your shirttail signifying that you are able to do that on your own now,” Henkel said.

“When I solo'd him for the first time and properly endorsed him for the FAA, after he got back I made a big deal about it, took pictures and I did cut his shirttail. Tradition also has it that the instructor will write something or draw something on the shirttail and return it to them.”

Clint hasn’t seen what his instructor has done, however. He will be presented with his shirttail after he passes his FAA check ride. First he’ll have the mock session with Henkel for a two-hour oral test and to go over ever maneuver required in the check ride.

After he gets the pilot’s license, he wants to work on earning other ratings and working his way up.

“I'd like to get my flight hours on the side (during college), just eventually get into the airline business and become an airline pilot,” Clint said.

Henkel has “no doubt that Clint will go far should he choose to pursue a career in aviation.”

“He's a very rapid learner and he's very methodical and very precise in what he does. So that's the kind of person you want flying an airplane, I can guarantee that,” Henkel said.