Flying USA – August 2019

TAKING WING

Sylvia now works as an experimental

test pilot, flying helicopters and air-

planes for the U.S. Army Redstone Test

Center in Huntsville, Alabama, which

is how she and Hugh ended up buying

Cloudbase. It is the fourth place they

have moved their tiny home to in the

past five years, in keeping with the itin-

erant nature of a service member’s life—

and they’ll be spending a year in Arizona

soon on a test-flying assignment.

Sylvia is flying gliders again, racing

her beautiful and ultra-efficient

Schempp-Hirth Discus-2a; she’ll be

competing in the FAI Women’s World

Gliding Championships in Australia

next year. Sylvia also holds fixed-wing

civilian ratings, including seaplanes

and tailwheel endorsements, and she

and Hugh have owned a Cessna 140 and

a Grumman Yankee. They are currently

airplaneless in Alabama, but aviation is

so central to Sylvia and Hugh’s life—

they were engaged at the Soaring Club

of Houston and married in the old

terminal at Houston Hobby Airport—

that I’m quite certain this will change

soon. They currently have their eyes on

a particular L-19 Birddog, painted in an

orange-and-white U.S. Army scheme.

Hugh, meanwhile, is about to upgrade

to captain at his regional airline; I fully

expect him to be joining me at the

major airlines soon. Sylvia’s profes-

sional future is less certain. She deeply

loves test-f lying, but that aforemen-

tioned case of wanderlust and her desire

to explore the greater world is often in

conf lict with “the needs of the service.”

Because this is Sylvia, I’m pretty

confident that she’ll do what makes

her happiest—and what gets her in the

air most often, which for her is pretty

much synonymous with happiness.

Also, because this is Sylvia, there’s a

good chance that whatever she does

next is something that nobody else

is expecting. Dawn and I look for-

ward to future summer evenings at

Cloudbase with Sylvia and Hugh,

watching fireflies float across the air-

strip and discussing the latest twists

and turns of our friends’ wonderfully

unconventional, inventive lives.

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Long, Strange Trip

SHE DEEPLY LOVES TEST-FLYING, BUT THAT

AFOREMENTIONED CASE OF WANDERLUST

AND HER DESIRE TO EXPLORE THE GREATER

WORLD IS OFTEN IN CONFLICT WITH “THE

NEEDS OF THE SERVICE.”