Sky-high dreams for Lakewood Ranch teenager

Leave it to the younger sister to make the most sense.

Twelve-year-old Claire Gonzales worried a perfectly fine family vacation to Nassau, Bahamas, last August was jeopardized because her 16-year-old sister, Annalise, couldn’t keep her thoughts to herself.

Annalise talked to their charter pilot, Louis Savigne, as he prepared the twin-engine, private jet for takeoff. She asked Savigne if she could handle the plane on takeoff.

“I said it somewhat jokingly,” Annalise insisted.

Savigne didn’t laugh. He put Annalise behind the controls of the Citation CJ3 aircraft and down the runway they went ... Claire sitting behind them with their parents, Lakewood Ranch’s Joe and Lori Gonzales.

Claire remembered thinking, “Can I get a taxi? You’re driving like you drive your car.”

Despite the angst, Annalise made a perfect takeoff, one so smooth her mom thought the pilot was handling the plane.

And not only did the plane lift off, so did Annalise’s desires.

Joe Gonzales has his private pilot’s license and is the CEO of the Air Medical Group, which transports patients all over the world by air, so Annalise said flying always had been in the back of her mind.

“It was so right,” Annalise said, a faraway look covering her face as if she was back in the moment. “When the wheels lift off, it is an amazing feeling. I knew I had to learn.”

The whole experience felt so natural to Annalise she never has feared it.

But would mom feel the same way?

“I was white knuckles,” Lori said of that flight leaving Nassau. “But it did feel the same as if the pilot was doing it.”

Lori was OK with her daughter’s flying lessons, but she knew it would lead to solo flights. 

“In the beginning I was nervous because she was all by herself, but she had put so many hours into it,” she said.

Joe wasn’t nervous because he had faith in his daughter’s desire to learn.

“When we watched her solo, it was in a Cessna 172,” he said. “I was in utter amazement, the way she took to it and the way she handled it. She has good situational awareness and she has excellent decision-making. Things can change dramatically in an aircraft, and you have to be able to change direction on the fly. But she is level-headed and has common sense. She knows how to manage stress.”

He said his daughter won’t be bullied into making bad decisions. If air traffic control asks her to land on a runway where the winds aren’t favorable, she will refuse.

After taking ballet lessons much of her childhood, and recently getting into modeling, Annalise narrowed her focus to flying. 

“It quickly became the most important thing to me,” she said. “There is not a moment I don’t enjoy.”

She took ground school lessons for four months, four to six hours a week. Then came 100 hours of flight lessons from Lift Air. Now 17, she passed her private pilot’s license test on the first try April 5.

A home-schooled junior, she is thinking about joining the Air Force.

“She is a great student,” Lori said of her daughter. “And I noticed a change in her since she started flying, as she is more driven and independent. She has a direction.”

Her friends are wondering if they have a direction.

“They are asking, ‘Where are we going on vacation?’” Lori said.

Annalise does take her friends for a ride, but loves the solitude of flying as well.

“I love being by myself,” she said, and then looked over at her family. “No offense, but it’s peaceful.”

Her dad said fewer than 12,000 17- and 18-year-olds have a private pilot’s license and he hopes her peers will realize they can accomplish similar feats. He is proud of his daughter’s hard work toward a goal.

Three months ago, he purchased a $500,000 Cirrus SR22, single-engine, five-seat aircraft. Among single-engine planes, it has a larger wing, higher fuel capacity and a more powerful, 310-horsepower engine. He already has planning to buy the plane, but his daughter’s interest in flying sped up the process.

Annalise loves the additional speed. She said her sister was right about her driving habits with her car and confessed to loving speed.

Claire admires her sister’s effort, but said she doesn’t have any similar goals to become a pilot.

When her sister got a plane, Claire asked for a cat. Now she can take the cat anywhere with her sister driving.

If any of her peers doubt they have the courage to fly a plane, Lori offers this story.

Six months ago Annalise was driving near the east end of University Parkway when she made a terrified phone call to her mom.

“She said, ‘There is a spider in my car and I don’t know what to do.’”

Mom came to the car, which Annalise parked along the side of the road. The two of them looked at the quarter-sized spider and called Dad.

Hopefully she won’t encounter any spiders at 10,000 feet.