Sixteen couldn't have been any sweeter for Hayden Simmons.

The Lewiston youngster celebrated his birthday Tuesday with a helicopter flight from the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport. But this was no sightseeing tour. Simmons was the pilot of the tiny Hughes 300. And he was all alone.

"I was a little nervous at the start," a clearly exhilarated Simmons said shortly after his first solo flight in the family chopper. "But once I got it stabilized, it was all right. Without dad, the weight is off a little."

The craft also didn't have a full tank of fuel, which affected the handling slightly.

"But it was really fun, actually," he said, eyes still wide from the adventure.

Simmons' dad is Kent Simmons, a dentist and owner of the Odonata flight school at the airport. And Tuesday might have been his proudest moment as an instructor.

"It's hard to describe," Kent Simmons said as the oldest of his three sons made several passes over the frigid airport tarmac. "It was quite an ordeal to get him to do this on his 16th birthday."

Coordinating the moment so it would happen on the first day Hayden Simmons was legally able to fly solo involved more than making sure he could fly. He had to be medically certified, Kent Simmons said. And the weather began to deteriorate as the big day got closer.

The cold, windy conditions made the helicopter sway a bit as Hayden Simmons hovered a few feet off the ground as he waited for the tower to clear his flight. But once permission came, he deftly maneuvered the craft away from his gathered family, hit the throttle, and was off.

Hayden Simmons' mother Heidi Simmons said her nerves never really got to her Tuesday.

"I'm very confident in his instructor, and I'm very confident in his skills," she said. Brothers Dale, 13, and Emmett, 9, watched proudly between visits to the car to warm up.

Kent Simmons said his son has spent his entire life around aviation, and first took the controls of an aircraft when he was just 9 years old.

"Ever since he was pretty much born, he flew with us," he said.

After his passes over the airport, Hayden Simmons expertly landed the helicopter on the tiny trailer his dad uses to pull it from the hangar to the helipad. As the rotors wound down, dad climbed into the cockpit to give his son his first official pat on the back. A giant grin spread across the young man's face.

"You did it," Heidi Simmons shouted. "Congratulations, buddy."

Kent Simmons used a friend's knife to cut off his son's shirttail, the ceremonial gesture often given by flight instructors to their students after their first solo.

Hayden Simmons said he might have let out a whoop or two as he sped around the airport, but was surprised by how lonely he felt without dad at his side.

"It was so different," he said. "It's definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

---

Mills may be contacted at jmills@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2266.