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Aviatrix Sours Through Retirement

Many retirees love to travel, but for Carol Woods resident Janet Davis, the journey is often more exciting than the destination. Davis is a pilot who has flown her Cessna Skylane to 48 states, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Recently Davis received the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award from the Federal Aviation Administration in recognition of being a pilot in good safety for more than 50 years.

Davis was inspired to begin flying by her aunt, who was one of the original women pilots.

“She was concurrent with Amelia Earnhart. She knew her,” Davis said. “She was also international president of the 99s after the war.”

At age fifteen and without the knowledge of her parents Davis began taking flying lessons, carrying peanut butter sandwiches to school for lunch so that she could use her lunch money for instruction at the local airport in Quincy, Illinois.  Three dollars and fifty cents (ten days of lunch money) paid for one-half hour of flight instruction.

“The problem arose when I was ready to solo,” said Davis, who was too young to fly a plane on her own without her parents’ permission. “I took the form home and laid it before my mother at supper. She looked at it and said, ‘What’s this?’ I told her and she laid it aside and said we’d talk in the morning. At that time, she returned it to me signed. The only thing she and dad had to consider were the economic implications, but since it hadn’t cost them anything extra until then, they decided it was OK.”

Davis took a job at Quincy Municipal Airport, which meant she could fly for free. Even though she loved flying on Aeronca Chiefs, Interstate Cadets, Taylorcrafts and Piper Cubs, she admits one of the biggest perks at the time was meeting many young Air Force cadets.

“We had a group of cadets that came out every six weeks. We gave them 40 hours of light plane time to see if they could take it,” Davis said. “They were a great group of men and we had an awfully good time.”

Davis remembers that often she would fly her plane over her boyfriend’s farmhouse and “buzz” it to let him know she was ready to be picked up. He would see her signal and drive out to the airport to meet Davis for dinner.

Davis became licensed while at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. She met her husband, Dick, during college. He shared her love of flying and became licensed shortly after World War II.

“We were married as soon as I graduated in 1946,” Davis said. “Our family grew to four children and there was not enough time or money to do much flying.”

Davis took a 25-year break from flying, but never lost the desire. As she and her husband approached retirement, they began taking lessons again and flying with Cessna 182 clubs. Eventually they decided to invest in their own plane, the Cessna Skylane that Davis still flies from Burlington Airport in Alamance County.

Davis says one of her most exciting trips was when she flew to Alaska with her husband.

“When we flew into Fairbanks, we could see Mount McKinley in the background, which was a thrill,” Davis said. “It was early August and they told us to get out of there by the middle of August because it might start to snow.”

She retired in 1991 and they moved to the Outer Banks.

“When I was in the Outer Banks I flew for the Coast Guard Auxiliary,” Davis said. “I must have flown up and down the Outer Banks one hundred times and it was always a thrill. There is always something different—either the way the water is or the color.”

Davis’ husband died in 1995, and she lived in the Outer Banks until she moved to Carol Woods in 2004.

These days Davis mainly flies to visit family in Texas, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Michigan. She also enjoys sharing her hobby with her friends at Carol Woods.

Carol Woods resident Ellie Lawson accompanied her on a trip to Texas where each visited a son.  Janet and a pilot friend also took Dot Cansler aloft for a breathtaking view of Crater Lake when they met in Ashland, Oregon.

Janet also introduced Carol Woods resident Stella Lyons, who is legally blind, to the art of flying.  Before they went flying, Davis used a model of her plane, Mai Toi, and explained each of its parts while Stella explored it with her fingers.

“We spent time here in the Social Lounge going over the model,” Davis said. “Then we went out to the airport and did the same thing on my airplane. She touched everything.”

After Lyons was comfortable with the plane, they took off for a local fun flight. Once aloft, Davis gave Lyons the opportunity to use the yoke to turn left and right.  When, at Davis’ suggestion, Lyons pushed the yoke forward and the plane dipped downward, Lyons let out a “whee!” Later, clearly elated, Lyons told other Carol Woods residents, “It almost scared the pudding out of me.”

Davis convinced some of her pilot friends to join the Priority List for Carol Woods, and says she looks forward to having more pilots join the community.

“The plane has given me much pleasure and convenient transportation all these years,” Davis said. “As long as I can pass the physical examination, the periodic competency checks and find my way to the airport, I figure I’ll go flying.”