TAKE FLIGHT

By Shanna Hogan
Photos by: Ross Mason

Forty-five years ago Roy Coulliette responded to a classified ad that would forever alter the course of his life. The year was 1965 and Couillette, then a 24-year-old cabinet maker, had dreams of one day flying planes.

“I had wanted to be a pilot since I could walk,” says Coulliette, “but I didn’t have any money, so I never learned to fly. Then one day I was flipping through the newspaper when I came across this ad.”

A local pilot was advertising free flying lessons in exchange for handy work. Coulliette responded to the ad, and soon he was in the cockpit of a glider plane, a lightweight aircraft that soars through the skies without any mechanical engine.

Before long, Coulliette was not only flying gliders, he was teaching others how to fly them too. He saved enough money to purchase a glider plane of his own and a few years later became the owner of Turf Soaring School, the popular flight school in Peoria that teaches the sport of glider flying.

A skilled glider pilot can stay airborne for hours by riding the wind, angling the plane in various ways to catch the breeze and increase speed. Advanced pilots also regularly dazzle spectators by performing impressive aerobatics including loops, rolls and spins.

While Coulliette flies all sorts of aircraft, he says there is nothing like the feeling of flying a glider.
“I love to fly gliders the best because that’s the purest form of flying there is,” he says. “You’re up there with the birds, and your only restriction is Mother Nature.”