Alex Vanover
I am Alex Vanover and I will be 17 on January 25, 2017. I have been flying for about 7 years now and have done all of my primary training at Northwest Regional Airport (52F).

I received much of my early flight instruction from Charlie Yates, over a 3 year period, until Charlie's death in the plane crash of September, 2012. Charlie was a huge mentor for me and really inspired me to take on flying as a full time passion and future career. Right now (January 2017), I am a junior in high school attending Byron Nelson in Roanoke and plan on graduating in 2018.

I am enrolled in a dual credit program with Tarrant County College, where I spend half the day on their campus working on my aviation mechanics rating. I am on track to have 1 year of college done once I get out of high school and should finish my a&p rating one year out of high school.

My long term goals are to head toward a career in aviation particularly in the airlines or in aviation engineering.

Now I am being mentored by Tommy Meyer and Gary Platner to fly George Meyer's famous prototype Little Toot, N61G! What a wonderful opportunity Tommy has given me.  The plan is to fly the original Little Toot in formation with Big Toot to Oshkosh 2019! I am proud that Tommy Meyer selected me.

Alex

LJ: This would make a great story for EAA Sport AV magazine!

Also, Alex has appeared on this website before. Here are two previous times:
    1) With Glen Hyde, owner of 52F. Click
    2) Interviewed as part of the story of the crash of Charlie Yates. Click
Alex didn't just sit in Little Toot. He taxied it. Notice the shape of the prop in the photo. That's the shape it appears to have when caught in motion by a camera.