METHUEN – Before entering Methuen High, Isaac Gillespie had never played tennis, was an inexperienced swimmer and had never thrown the shot put.
Oh yes, and he never flew an airplane.
The senior is now a successful doubles tennis player, was part of the state winning medley relay team, can throw the shot put 33 feet, and can serve as a pilot on an airplane that’s 2,000 feet in the sky.
Back in 2022, Gillespie started aviation training at the Lawrence Municipal Airport in North Andover. That summer, he took a seat in a Piper-PA-28 Cherokee Plane and took off from the runway before getting help from his instructor with the landing.
“I was sixteen years old, and flying for the first time was probably the coolest experience I have ever had in my entire life,” said Gillespie. “We taxi down the runway and we go up; my instructor tells me to apply the throttle, so I follow his instructions, and it felt so weird because I had never taken off in airplane like that before.
“We went out to the Salisbury Beach area. He taught me how to turn properly and the basic stuff because it was my first time. It was so cool to see the whole Merrimack Valley. We were 2,000 feet in the air. I could see North Andover High School, I could see Methuen High School, I could see the ocean,” he added.
On December 9 of 2023, he flew solo for the first time – with a bouncing/hard landing he admitted — and has done three more solo trips since.
“That was a pretty wild experience being in a plane flying by yourself for the first time. Everything is up to you. There’s no instructor. It’s just you in the plane and the guy (on Air Traffic Control),” he said.
Gillespie has approximately 58 hours of training under his belt. He has flown three different planes, between the Cessna 150, the Cessna 172 and the Piper-28. Within the next month or so, he will take his longest trip, 52 miles each way from Lawrence Airport to Laconia, N.H. and back.
“The easiest part is taking off,” he said. “The crosswind landings are the toughest. The winds can blow you right off the runway.”
Moving forward, his plan is to attain his pilot’s license, work towards a variety of different classes/licenses which will take him a few years, while attending North Shore Community College in the fall and enroll in its aviation program.
“I had Isaac in class when he was a freshman, and he showed great maturity and motivation,” said track coach Kevin Alliette. “I know he’s wanted to be a pilot since he was three years old. Most people never really know what they want to do so it is impressive that he has such a specific future goal already set up. I am proud of Isaac and told him that I would go on a flight with him.”