‘There is something about real aviators. You can always tell a real aviator because a plane can’t go overhead without him looking up at it.’

Stuart Winkelman’s head is always in the clouds and he can’t keep his feet on the ground. But he isn’t daydreaming--he’s a flight instructor for Western Aviation. Teaching people from all walks of life to fly is not Winkelman’s first profession, however. The 29-year-old Winkelman has worked in music, commercial real estate, and resort management. His love of flying developed early, and during his teen-age years, he was both a member of the United States Auxiliary Air Force and an assistant archivist for the San Diego Aerospace Museum. When he isn’t teaching, he’s flying his own Piper airplane, or sky diving. Times staff writer Caroline Lemke interviewed Winkelman at Western Aviation at Montgomery Air Field and David McNew photographed him.

I had a father who flew. He had soloed back in the late ‘40s in a little Piper Cub and had never really done much with it. Back in the late ‘70s he started flying again. By that time I was already flying, so the two of us went off and did stuff together. But he was the only one in the family who flew.

Flying stemmed from having moved here to a new place and not knowing anybody. I was a little kid and looking around for neat things to do. I found this auxiliary air force, which is a civil patrol for the United States Air Force. I had heard that you could fly in it and do all kinds of exciting things, so I went down there one day, and it was true. They actually taught kids how to fly.

I started when I was 13 and they started teaching me how to fly when I was probably 14. I put a lot of energy into it and worked my way up, rank-wise. I was involved with this program four or five days a week after school. I became a representative from California to the national headquarters.

I started working as a volunteer at the San Diego Aerospace Museum in Balboa Park when I was 14. I started out cleaning airplanes and putting things together, and, after a couple of months they thought I had good handwriting so they put me into the archives. I ended up being, in a little over a year, the assistant archivist.

I worked there almost eight years in that position. That was when the old museum burned down and the new one was built. Having done that introduced me to all kinds of aviators and people you dream about meeting as a kid. Original aircraft designers, those kind of people who make a real impression on you.

There is something about real aviators. You can always tell a real aviator because a plane can’t go overhead without him looking up at it. No matter what you’re doing, no matter where you are, if an airplane goes overhead, you have to look up. I’ve always done that. I love airplanes. I love the adventure of being in the air.

I’d be real hard-pressed to find a dislike to flight instructing. And, then again, if I found a dislike, I probably wouldn’t being doing it. I’m thrilled to be flying. I’m thrilled to be instructing. I have such a variety of students that go from one extreme to another. It’s fascinating.

I work real hard with students, no matter what kind of students they are. It’s not to just get somebody in here and turn them into a pilot.

I work real hard and try to get these guys to be what I call aviators. Not somebody who gets in an airplane and goes and flies, but somebody who just loves to be in an airplane and who can feel the airplane and get emotionally involved. Not like somebody who gets in an airplane like they get in a car. You can be that way, but I want to show them the other side of it, and usually they just suck it right up.

It can always be different, but that’s what makes it so bloody exciting.

A cloud system is never the same way. A sunrise is never the same. A sunset is never the same, and that stuff just drives me nuts. You take off out of here in the morning, and it’s gray or overcast and gloomy. We hop in an airplane and, 2,500 feet high, you break out into this intense blue sky and sun. It’s like “good morning.” It makes me feel very, very special.