Rocklin, California, resident Hannah Treehan, EAA 1371080, celebrated a momentous milestone for a 16-year-old when she soloed on Tuesday, November 24, just two days before Thanksgiving.
“It was a really calm morning,” Hannah said. “The sun had just come up. There were no winds. It was a really beautiful day to solo.”
Hannah said she knew the date was approaching, but when the day came, she still felt slightly nervous. Since passing her private pilot written exam in September, she was eager to finally solo.
“I was really excited because I felt confident, I mean I was nervous, but not too much,” Hannah said. “I was really honestly just excited, it’s a really big milestone for me.”
Hannah’s aviation journey started with Young Eagles.
“My little brother was actually working on a project with someone at our EAA chapter building on a flight simulator and so I tagged along one day and I got involved in that project,” Hannah said. “A couple days into that, our mentor for that project took us up in a plane for a Young Eagles flight. That was the first time I had ever been in a small plane and it was just super exhilarating. I had so much fun and so after that, that’s when I decided to start my aviation journey.”
In August, Hannah was awarded the Ray Scholar Aviation Scholarship through her chapter.
“It’s really been a big help and the community has been so supportive,” Hannah said. “I’m really grateful that everyone’s supporting me so much. It means a lot to me. The scholarship has definitely made things a lot easier. I was working an internship over the summer and using that money to pay for my flight lessons, but once I got the scholarship everything became a whole lot easier.”
Hannah said her goal is to get her checkride scheduled for February. While she isn’t sure what the future holds regarding a career in aviation, she knows that she wants to continue learning.
“I want to get my IFR rating and I want to get multi-engine,” Hannah said. “I’m not really sure if I want to take it on as a career or not, it’s something that I’m thinking about, but I’ll probably just fly on weekends and have fun for now.”
Hannah said she couldn’t be more grateful for her EAA family and guiding her on this journey.
“All the pilots in the EAA chapter have been super supportive and offering me advice and guidance and congratulating me as I reached little milestones and big ones like my solo, so it’s really nice to have a community around me.”
Have you reached a milestone recently? Passed a checkride, given your first or hundredth Young Eagles flight, flown your homebuilt for the first time? Tell us about it at EAA.org/Submissions.