# Wheelchair pilot

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheelchair-pilot/620137>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [April 27, 2012, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheelchair-pilot/620137 "2012-04-27T15:35:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2012, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheelchair-pilot/620137/1 "2012-04-27T15:35:27Z")

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AOPA has an [article and video](http://www.aopa.org/training/articles/2012/120426injury-doesnt-throttle-back-pilots-drive-to-fly.html?WT.mc_id=120427epilot&WT.mc_sect=gan) on their site profiling a new pilot who has been disabled since he was a baby.

> [@](#):
>
> When Clayton Smeltz sits in the left seat of his Piper Cherokee 140, he doesn’t have think about the best way to maneuver his wheelchair around obstacles or over uneven terrain. He’s free.
> 
> “If you can, imagine just the challenges, mobility wise, that I’m faced with on a daily basis, confined to a wheelchair, having to roll over flat-surfaces-only type of thing, then to be able to race down the runway and shoot yourself into the sky, and suddenly you’re able to rotate in any axis you want and go anywhere you want,” Smelts explained after flying into Ohio’s Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport on a calm day to meet his instructor, talk to AOPA, and take guests flying with his recently earn[ed] private pilot certificate in hand. “That’s a feeling of freedom and liberation that I don’t think I would otherwise be able to experience.”