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While one wouldn’t guess it during a conversation with Kim, he didn’t grow up in a household of pilots. Even though aviation surrounded him grow- ing up, an interest in flying wasn’t fostered until his thirties.
“I attribute my interest in f lying, which is somewhat of a latent interest, to growing up in Alaska. I was born in California, and then we moved up to Anchorage when I was three years old. Growing up there, it seemed like every other person in the neighbor- hood was a general aviation pilot. But I never thought it would be something in the realm of possibilities an aver- age person could do. I had thought these people were somehow gifted with this incredible opportunity and learned to fly through a privilege or something not available to the average individual like me.”
But with time, Kim learned that flying could be enjoyed by all who pursue it. “It was fairly recently, back in 2012, that I started flight training,”
he recalled. “I was working at a com- pany in Dallas and one of the guys who worked for me called me out of the blue and said we should learn to f ly airplanes. The whole concept was foreign but harkened back to a time growing up. I remembered that f lying always seemed interesting to me.”
The tech entrepreneur’s realization 10 years ago was quickly followed by a discovery flight followed by a fer- vent effort to fly as much as possible. “I am one of those people that once I get convicted in an idea, I go full on, full board, and full into it. That’s what happened. I just started train- ing and earned my private some 60 odd hours later.”
After gaining a baseline knowledge for f lying, Kim immediately began working on his instrument rating. Around this time, he purchased an experimental Glasair Super II. “That’s the aircraft I flew for around 600 hours and got my experience in. I flew it ev- erywhere. It took me to all corners of
Gavin Kim and family.
the United States and through several ratings,” Kim explained.
“A couple years ago, I got a bug to continue additional training and went for my commercial rating. After that I decided to pursue my multi-engine rating, which was only a few months ago. Most of this training I did in my Glasair, which I kept through it all,
28 • TWIN & TURBINE / September 2022
Yingling
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