Heroic Pilot Comes Down to Being Just 9 Again

When 9-year-old Tony Aliengena taxied his single-engine Cessna Centurion 210 into John Wayne Airport on Saturday--becoming the youngest person ever to fly across the United States and back--it was his father Gary who reached him first.

Tony, in buzz-cut hair, T-shirt, canvas pants and tennis shoes with worn-out laces dragging on the ground, showed his braces in a huge grin and hugged his dad, who first taught him to fly. Gary Aliengena, camera in hand to record his son’s landing, squeezed his son hard and whispered in his ear, “I love you and I’m so proud of you.”

You knew it was Tony’s dad, because he wore a red T-shirt with bold white letters announcing “Tony’s Dad.” His mother, Susan, was in a matching T-shirt, announcing her role. So was 8-year-old sister Alaina.

Suggestion to Parents

In July, after learning that 11-year-old John Kevin Hill of Texas had flown across the United States, the San Juan Capistrano third grader approached his parents about making the flight.

“I could do that,” they remembered Tony saying. He also wanted a shot at the record set in 1983 by 9-year-old Cody A. Locke, who became the youngest person to fly an aircraft solo.

Gary Aliengena, who owns his own trucking firm, first had Tony sitting in his lap learning to fly Cessnas when the boy was 3 years old. Tony had been flying planes for years, with someone else actually in control.

“When Tony persisted, we laid out for him all the flight instruction it would take, all the hard work--a total commitment that would cut into time with his friends,” his mother said. “But once he got into it, we also gave him a chance to back out. We didn’t want him to stay with it just out of family pressure, if it all began to overwhelm him.”

But the only thing that seemed to overwhelm Tony Aliengena shortly after noon Saturday was facing the throng of news people that came forward as soon as his family had finished hugging him at the airport.

Plenty of Questions

How does it feel setting the record?

“Great,” he said in a low voice, hands shoved into his pockets.

Any trouble on the flight?

“Nah, not really.”

Others on the flight were more animated about it.

The first passengers off the plane were Don Taylor of the National Aeronautics Assn. and Ed Fernett, flight instructor, both in red T-shirts stating they were part of the historic flight. Then came a newspaper reporter and photographer who had made the trip. Red T-shirts too. Everybody’s T-shirt read: “Tony did it.”

“He did a wonderful job, not just for a 9-year-old, but for any pilot,” Fernett said.

Taylor, whose job was to verify that the boy actually had flown the plane himself, praised him too.

“You couldn’t find a nicer boy,” he said. “But when he’s in that airplane, he’s all business. I was much more impressed than I thought I would be.”

Tony Aliengena had set the age record for a solo flight March 13, at an age 21 days younger than the Locke boy. That flight was in an ultra-light plane, which avoided Federal Aviation Administration rules that solo pilots must be at least 16.

Instructor Aboard

The cross-country flight, legal because a flight instructor was aboard, began from John Wayne Airport on March 30 and ended in Bedford, Mass., on April 2.

Taylor of the NAA said Fernett grabbed the controls only once, for 15 seconds, when the plane hit heavy winds above the Great Smoky Mountains in eastern Tennessee. But that was 15 seconds too many. For Tony to set the record, they had to fly back to Memphis, Tenn., and retrace that part of the trip.

Taylor explained that Tony had a slight stomach ailment at the time, which led Fernett to take control.

“The boy eats weird,” Taylor said. “The night before, he loaded up on shrimp and lobster and scallops, and it got to him a little.”

A television reporter asked Tony how he felt when he landed on the East Coast to set the record.

“I did not set the record there, sir,” he answered.

It was a record, but the record Tony wanted was for crisscrossing the continent.

Time for Relaxation

When the crowd thinned, Tony began to relax. He joked with the many young friends who had come to congratulate him, and showed them the cockpit, where a special seat had been installed so he could see over the control panel. When Andrew Fernett, son of Tony’s instructor, slipped him two pieces of bubble gum, his face lighted. “Gee thanks,” he said, popping it quickly into his mouth.

His parents had arranged for a limousine to take their son and his friends back to their home, where a private swimming party was planned. Tony delighted in naming which friends would have the honor of riding in the limo with him.

“Can I sit next to you, Tony?” one boy said grabbing him.

“My goodness,” Tony responded in mock incredulity. “You just touched a famous person!”

It was kid’s stuff, with no one else around. All the attention did not really appear to affect him. In fact, he seemed to be more excited in announcing to his father that he had beaten Fernett in bogeys, a game of spotting other planes in the air during the flight, than in the significance of his accomplishment. The bogey loser had to buy the winner a new pilot’s head set.

His third-grade teacher at St. Margaret’s Episcopal School, Susan Remsberg, insisted that Tony has remained humble.

Normal at School

“When his parents told me what he was about to do, and how he had been preparing for weeks, I was absolutely amazed; he had been so perfectly normal at school all that time,” she said.

Remsberg, who described Tony as “a tremendous student,” with straight A’s, was among three of his teachers in the congratulatory party at the airport.

“This experience has been wonderful for the whole class,” she said. “They were here to see him off, and that was exciting for them. It’s given them a chance to see a classmate set a goal and excel.”

There are other goals now. During his flight, Tony learned that young Hill, the Texas boy, was making plans to fly around the world. Another 11-year-old, Christopher Lee Marshall of Oceano, Calif., who set the cross-country record at age 10, reportedly plans a flight next summer from New York to Paris.

“Tony is now talking about being the youngest to fly around the world,” Gary Aliengena said smiling. “But I’ve got some sad news for him,” his father added, meaning that it was far too early to think about another big flight.

Tony Aliengena’s most immediate plans are for Little League baseball this afternoon, where he is a center fielder for a team called the Giants. And it’s back to the world of the third grade Monday.

“We’re proud of what he’s done, but right now I’m just glad to see him back,” said mother Susan. “He’s still just a 9-year-old boy.”