Rexburg pilot John Bagley awarded highest honor in aviation
REXBURG, Idaho (KIFI) — For 61 years, John Bagley has spent his life in the skies. When he’s not in the cockpit, you can find him at the Legacy Flight Museum in Rexburg, probably talking about vintage aircraft. On Saturday, September 19, Bagley was honored by the Federal Aviation Administration with the prestigious Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award, recognizing his decades of dedication to aviation.
“All the good things that there is to do in life, you can experience in an airplane,” Bagley said.
The Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award is known to be the highest honor in aviation. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, you must meet these requirements to earn the award:
Hold a U.S. Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) or Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) pilot certificate. Have 50 or more years of civil and military piloting experience or 50 or more years combined experience in both piloting and aircraft operations. Up to 20 years of the required 50 years may be U.S. military experience. The effective start date for the 50 years is the date of the nominee’s first solo flight or military equivalent. The 50 years may be computed consecutively or non-consecutively. Be a U.S. citizen. Have NOT had any airman certificate revoked.“The FAA called me, and they interviewed me for a while, and they said, ‘Do you think you deserve it?’ And I said, ‘No, but my mechanics do, because my mechanics keep me flying,'” Bagley said.
While he says that, he is grateful for the recognition from the FAA.
“To me, it was just a great honor to get it. You know, I’ve got about 10,000 hours of flying and this is the FAA’s way of saying good job,” Bagley said.
Like every career, there were tough times. But he survived.
“I had an airplane quit on me just south of town, and I had to landed on the freeway. In 1995, I had a TI-28 fireball on me, and we crashed it outside of town, and I was burned very badly. My buddy in the back seat had a broken back, and I waited about ten days for I went flying again,” Bagley said.
Despite the challenges, it wasn’t able to keep him out of the pilot’s seat.
“(I love) the beauty of the earth when we’re in the air. But there’s another part when you’re up high and the clouds,” Bagley said, “And you’ll see it is so peaceful up there. You get up at 24, 26, 28,000ft and everything is calm. And there’s not really a sense of motion, and it’s just wonderful. It’s just delightful. It’s home.”
Click here to follow the original article.