It is the rare high school boy who is able to meticulously fashion his life around a future that involves lofty goals soon to be realized and even loftier goals that would be considered pipe dreams had they not been formulated by Chris Olson.

A junior at Oak Harbor High School, Olson balances drive with empathy, focus with friendliness, and humility with self-effacement. He is grounded in his unwavering beliefs.

But “grounded” is far from literal in Olson’s case. He officially earned his pilot’s license May 2, one day after his 17th birthday, the minimum age required to formally obtain the privilege.

It was a day filled with excitement, self-assuredness and a heaping portion of nerves as Olson took off en-route to Bellingham for his private pilot check-ride.

“The weather was about the best you could ask for with calm air and a high overcast,” he said. “I wanted to warm up, so I practiced some maneuvers over Skagit Valley on the way.”

After 45 minutes of intense questioning and one hour of demonstrating his flying ability to the Federal Aviation Administration examiner, Olson’s hard work culminated with the bestowment of a private pilot’s license.

“Both the oral and flying portions of the check-ride went smoothly, thanks to the excellent flying club instructors who prepared me thoroughly for it,” Olson said. “I couldn’t have done it without them.”

In addition to receiving his pilot’s license and turning 17, the multi-tasker was named commanding officer for Oak Harbor High School’s NJROTC unit next year. It was a whirlwind week.

“We are so proud of him,” said Carol Olson, Chris’ mother.

With a retired Navy pilot for a dad who is now a commercial pilot with United, young Olson’s interest was piqued at an early age as he began pursuing a passion that would later turn into a highly-involved avocation pollinating what could ultimately grow into a profession.

At age 7, Olson mixed imagination with training, experiencing his fiery crashes and touted successes on a computer flight simulator. Nine years later, simulation was far from sufficient.

“Aviation has always been a part of our family,” he said, remembering his father flying in to Whidbey Island Naval Air Station from overseas duty when Chris was a wee 3-year-old. “Watching him, that’s when I realized that I had to fly someday. And he and I talk a lot about flying.”

For the last year, Chris has been a fixture at the Whidbey Island Navy Flying Club Fraser School of Flight, where he has been accepted into the fold by fellow pilots and the business’s namesake and Chief Flight Instructor Bob Fraser, a passionate and boisterous retired Navy pilot.

“Chris has done amazing,” Fraser said. “He is a very focused young man. Chris has established records as the best teenage pilot the club has trained in the last 30 years. He has set a great example for the youth of our country. I am extremely proud of him as a person and as a pilot.”

Carol Olson and her husband Jess, understanding their son’s unquenchable drive, purchased the overachiever-in-training his first introductory flight at the club for his 16th birthday.

“It’s his dream. His dad started flying at 16,” said Carol, who has observed her son use his age-defying maturity and will to inch towards that dream. “It takes so much hard work. It’s funny, as parents you give your children roots, but you later give them the wings they need to fly. I guess we literally did that with Chris.”

The rigorous pilot’s program is part intensive study and part application. The latter separates the students relegated to classrooms from the pilots ready to graduate to the lessons taught at 3,000 feet where mistakes cannot simply be erased from the blackboard.

“I flew my cross country solo to Boeing Field and then on to Olympia,” he said. “It was an awesome flight. It’s a busy airfield in Seattle with congested airspace surrounding it. But the cross country flights teach you to put everything you’ve learned together. It’s not fear when you know you have the knowledge and the ability.”

The remarkably well-adjusted, straight “A” student has organized his life to include more scheduled activities and work than many professional adults pile on their plates. Olson wakes up at 5:30 a.m. during the week, arriving at the high school an hour later to wipe the sleep from his eyes as he participates in the NJROTC Armed Drill Team.

After school, he works part-time at Cane Engineering, where his job doesn’t exactly entail emptying trash cans or cleaning toilets. Instead he receives hands-on training as he works on civil engineering projects.

“It’s an excellent place to work,” Olson said, explaining his tentative plans to study aeronautical engineering and aviation at the U.S. Air Force Academy or Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz. “I’m doing a week-long, summer seminar at the Air Force Academy in June to see if that is what I want to do.”

After work, Olson makes a beeline for Whidbey Island Naval Air Station and the facility that houses the Piper Cherokee, a two-seater with whom he has become intimately familiar as he’s tactilely and visually learned every inch of the plane.

“We check all of the instruments during the preflight, as well as the oil, control surfaces and pretty much everything,” he said. “You leave nothing to chance.”

The first phase of pilot training involves significant air work, stalls and landings, and finally the initial solo flight.

“During the second phase we get into the cross countries,” he explained, “And then in the final section we execute high performance maneuvers and continue to polish all skills.”

Fear does not hinder they young man. He admits he is not immune to the emotion, but he explains the calmness that comes from believing in oneself trumps the visceral apprehension that many people experience.

“You’ve got to place faith in yourself and in the airplane,” he said with a smile. “It can get hairy out there with the wind and weather. But it all becomes second nature. You have to be a responsible pilot. That’s absolutely necessary. You don’t take chances.”

Muscle memory and an unwavering confidence have helped Olson fulfill a dream that will only continue to change shape and grow. Until his post-Oak Harbor life begins, he will take to the skies with his new license and enjoy as much of the firmament as he can access.

“There are no roads to follow up there, you just navigate around the clouds,” he said with an expression that suggested his head was already in the clouds after even mentioning the altitude-driven catharsis.

Not bad for a kid who has never driven a land vehicle off of Whidbey Island.

Although a Navy flying club, Fraser emphasized that civilians are also authorized to use the service. For more information call 679-4359 or visit at www.winfc.com.

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