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Owner’s
Corner
Plotting a Flight Path Forward
“My father was an ATP-rated pilot and offered a job by Pan Am back in the late 60s, early 70s, but didn’t want to do it because he liked being an attorney more,” explained Jeff Plotka, a JetProp owner from Long Island. “I grew up getting into small airplanes to go on vacations. My first flight was when I
was two weeks old.”
With this early foray into flight and
a strong skyward interest, Plotka be- gan flying as soon as he could. “When I was 16, I decided that I wanted to get
26 • TWIN & TURBINE / August 2022
my private pilot license and started moving that direction.” But a grim ma- lignant melanoma diagnosis sidelined him from the cockpit (of both aircraft and boats) as a teenager.
He explained, “When I was 19, I was getting my captain’s license and my pilot’s license at the same time. I was taking f lying lessons, had my medi- cal, but then got sick and lost it. So, I stopped f lying because of the medi- cal, but more importantly, I started dating a woman and she hated small planes. But she liked the boats, so
Jeff Plotka alongside a Walker Mower and his 1997 Piper JetProp.
I kept the boating thing going for a while. I ended up marrying her and we are still married today.”
In the years since beating the diag- nosis and starting a life with his wife Anita, Plotka took up f lying again. But it wouldn’t be until years later that he returned to the cockpit on a consistent basis.
“Probably six or seven years ago, I was driving 90,000 miles a year in a truck and pulling a trailer. I sell lawnmowers for a living, so I was run- ning around, running around, then