The Liberty Gazette
December 13, 2022
Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely
Linda: It wasn’t your everyday occurrence. My friend Susan had flown her boss in his Citation jet to a small island in the Bahamas and was relaxing on the beach when someone rushed to her saying her services were needed immediately to take a sick man off the island and to a hospital. The man had had a stroke. She headed back to the airport to get the jet ready, and the man arrived shortly thereafter in the back of a pick-up truck. One of the people who brought him held the oxygen bottle, trying to keep him alive. This was a personal airplane, not used for medical flights, not equipped for patients, and Susan had never flown a critically ill person before. But she got him to Fort Lauderdale quickly, and he was whisked away by ambulance. She never heard the outcome, and she hopes he survived. As stressful as it was to make that flight, it was also personally rewarding to be called upon in a time of need, to be trusted with somebody’s life.
That experience might top the list, but she’s made other feel-good flights as well. Flying Special Olympics athletes has been another highlight in her flying career. The first time, she picked up four athletes, along with their support persons and luggage. When she asked the loading crew in what sport these athletes competed, they shrugged, saying, “We don’t know, but their luggage is heavy!” It turned out to be a bowling team. She says it makes her heart happy to fly these special passengers.
As a wife and mother of three, and co-owner of a Beechcraft Baron, she flies her family on vacations. As an avid runner, she treats herself to organized 5K runs at airports. She has flown her Baron to run on the runways of JFK in New York City, Miami International Airport, and others. She has invited me to join her. I didn’t know there was such a thing!
Susan began flight training at age 16 with encouragement from her father, who was a recreational pilot. She has fond memories of weekend trips to the beach, holding the charts, helping him navigate, and hanging out at the airport while he worked on the airplane. After graduating from Tufts University (majoring in child psychology and French), unsure of what to do next, she enrolled in Flight Safety Academy in Vero Beach. Earning all her ratings within a year, she was flight instructing when one of her students offered her a job as a corporate pilot. He owned a company and had a small airplane, a Malibu. After a couple of years, she stepped up to the aforementioned Citation, which has given her a great deal of satisfaction.
To be able to get off the ground, slip through the air, to view the world from above, the physical and mental challenges that flying brings, it takes her away from the everyday world and gives her opportunities to do extraordinary things for others.
ElyAirLines.blogspot.com
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