Records Fall as Boy Tames Skies, Nausea

Five days and 2,250 miles after he took off from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, 9-year-old Anthony Aliengena clambered out of the Cessna Centurion plane that he had just piloted in a record-setting flight across the country, squinted shyly at the crowd of well-wishers and reporters and tottered over to give his beaming father a pair of high-fives.

“I threw up again,” the nation’s youngest cross-country flier told his dad, 38-year-old Gary Aliengena, over the roar of jetliners landing and taking off at Washington’s National Airport.

The 4-foot-8 aviator from San Juan Capistrano, who sits on a child’s car seat to see over the airplane’s instrument panel, came to the nation’s capital Monday to receive a certificate for an aviation record he broke March 13. That was when Tony piloted an ultra-light aircraft out of Oceanside for 3 1/2 minutes to establish himself as the youngest solo flier ever. He is the first to establish that record under the observation of the National Aeronautic Assn., an official record-keeping body for aviation and space records.

The NAA certification came just two days after the third-grader appeared to set yet another record, landing in Bedford, Mass., after a cross-country flight. After the NAA certifies that flight, Tony will have become the youngest pilot ever to fly from one American coast to the other.

Not So Tough

“It wasn’t hard at all,” he said, his brown eyes nearly hidden under a cap sized to fit grown-up pilots.

After a couple of days of sight-seeing and a private ceremony at the National Air and Space Museum, Tony plans to turn around and set a third record, piloting the family plane back to Orange County, where he said he will return to being a normal boy his age. Once certified by the NAA, Aliengena’s cross-country flight will break a record formerly held by an Oceano, Calif., resident, Christopher Lee Marshall, who was 10 when he flew from Oceano to Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. in August.

Like many boys but few record-setting achievers, Tony does not use many words. “Sure,” he said shyly with a shrug, he’d be ready to do it all over again. “Yeah,” he was tired after a grueling continent-spanning flight. “The monuments,” he offered when asked what he wanted to see in Washington.

He’ll probably write a composition about the trip, too, said Tony, who missed 1 1/2 days of classes at St. Margaret’s Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano to make the trip.

Schoolwork to Do

Skipping classes as he skips across the continent, however, does not mean he is exempt from homework, said his teacher, Susan Remsberg. Along with the rest of his schoolmates, the third-grader has a book report due next week. His assignment is Robin Hood.

Asked if he hopes to fly one day for a living, the 78 1/2-pound pilot shook his head.

He wants to be a doctor--a brain surgeon to be exact. And when that dream comes true, he said he’ll fly “just for fun.”

Edward Fernett, a flight instructor from Ocean Air Flight Services in Oceanside, who said he rated Aliengena’s piloting abilities “a 15” on a scale of 1 to 10, accompanied Aliengena on his cross-country flight. Also aboard was Donald Taylor, an observer from the record-keeping National Aeronautics Assn.

The trip was completed with stops at El Paso, Tex.; Dallas, Memphis and Richmond, Va.

Family Waiting

At National Airport, the boy’s parents, his 8-year-old sister, Alaina, and his grandparents, Jean and Lorraine Lavallee, were on hand to greet him.

Tony’s parents said they began putting their son at the controls of their family plane when he was just a toddler, as a way to keep him amused during the family’s two cross-country flights. Tony’s father, a self-employed real estate and transportation consultant, is a long-time pilot who plans to teach Tony aerobatics when the family returns to California.

“Most kids ask for the keys to the family car,” Tony’s mother, Susan, said. “Ours asks for the keys to the plane.” Since he began formal instruction a year-and-a-half ago, Tony has become a proficient instrument flier.

As Tony and his passengers winged their way from Massachusetts, bad weather loomed over New Jersey, making the young pilot nauseous for the sixth time since he left California and forcing him to land until the weather cleared. But about 2 p.m., Tony’s youthful voice crackled over the control tower’s airwaves from eight miles away, announcing that “39 November,” a reference to his single-engine plane’s tail number, was seeking clearance to land.

“He sounds so cute,” his father said with a broad grin. “He sounds like he feels better.”

Times staff writer Lonn Johnston in Orange County contributed to this article.