Pilots say you're never too old to soar

MIAMI A. Jay Cristol took his first flying lesson at 15. Couldn't afford the $10 for a one-hour class so he stayed up for only 15 minutes plenty of time to get him hooked for life. Now the chief judge emeritus of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Miami is still logging in hours whenever he gets a chance.

This fall he celebrated a birthday: 82. He'll also toast to more than six decades in the air.

Unusual? Not really. Cristol is one of about 110 members of the Florida chapter of the United Flying Octogenerians (UFO), a group with one stringent requirement for membership. You must have acted as the pilot in command of an aircraft after your 80th birthday. No small feat, this, since a pilot must take a physical annually and a flight test every two years.

"It just charges my battery," says Cristol about his weekly flights out of Opa-Locka Airport.

Cristol is in good company. A fellow UFOer, Rogelio Corvo Jr., joined the Cuban Air Force at 17, went to cadet training in Texas and was invited to join the U.S. Air Force. Eventually, he flew in both the Korean and Vietnam wars. Honorably discharged with the rank of captain, he switched to commercial airliners. Now retired, he owns a Cessna 172.

A couple of times a week, he soars out of Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport, sometimes for a quick hop to the Bahamas, occasionally as far as Missouri. He just turned 83.

"I'll fly as long as I'm healthy," he says. "This has always been what I wanted to do."

Charles Lopez, a retired Miami pharmaceutical executive, is on the UFO board of directors. You could say he acquired his wings late in his mid-30s, when he was living in Puerto Rico. The delay was not for a lack of desire, only lack of funds.

After all, his parents had named him after Charles Lindbergh because he was born on the same day in June 1927 that the famous pilot arrived in New York after his flight to Paris.

Now 84, Lopez takes his Cessna Cardinal II for a spin at least once a week. When he's airborne, "it's such a range of emotions. You see things from a different perspective. You see the big picture and you get a sense for being above it all."

UFO was started in 1982 by 25 aviators who wanted to bring together old pilots who were still flying. Today, there are almost a thousand members, most of them in the United States but some also in Canada, Argentina, France and the United Kingdom. Many are retired military and commercial pilots who still fly their private planes. The oldest member is 97. At one time, UFO boasted a 102-year-old member who had voluntarily turned in his pilot's license after hitting the century mark but still flew as a co-pilot.

In addition to their passion for flying, UFOers say they have one thing in common: a can-do attitude. Incoming UFO president Don Newman, a retired pharmacist and attorney from the Clearwater, Fla., area, quotes the late Norman Vincent Peale when talking about his fellow fliers. "The most important thing is not God, country, job and family. It is your attitude toward God, country, job and family."

After decades in the cockpit, these men have seen plenty. They remember when there was no radar, when pilots, not computers, plotted flights manually, when six and seven briefcases of charts were necessary on longer flights.

"A lot is done for you now," says Cristol. "So I've done my best to keep up with technology."

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UFO's annual meeting is scheduled for September 22 in Hartford, Conn. Once installed as president, Newman wants to pump up membership. FAA records show there are about 5,000 pilots 78 years and older all potential UFOers.

In addition, he and Lopez want to conduct a survey to determine what traits members share. Lopez has already discovered certain common factors: most have at least one undergraduate college degree, they exercise regularly and they're well off enough to afford to own or rent a plane.

Even with such characteristics to recommend them, their advanced age usually prompts a raised eyebrow or two.

"You get one of two reactions," Lopez says. "Some people tell you, 'Wow, that's great! How do you do it?' Then others say, 'Wow, that's dangerous! I don't want to be around anywhere this old goat is flying.'"

Age, of course, has changed UFOer's habits. They don't fly as often or as far. They don't go out in bad weather. They're more cautious, not only about their equipment but also about their own skills. Cristol, for example, periodically submits to a voluntary flight check with a flight instructor. And Lopez won't go up at night.

"You have old pilots and you have bold pilots," Lopez quips. "But you don't have old, bold pilots."

For these octogenarians, flying remains liberating, both magical and spiritual, after all these years.

"When you fly, you have no limits," Corvo says. "You can fly over roads, over water, over mountains. You have freedom."