Page 9 - June24

They’ll spend the Fourth of July with family in South Dakota, then summer vacation will take them to the island of Newfoundland – “It’s Maine on steroids,” said Herr, who visited the eastern Canada vacation spot with his wife before kids.
This fall, they’ll begin regularly flying to Manhattan, Kansas, where their daughter will start her freshman year studying Animal Science at Kansas State University.
“Flying our own aircraft is a great luxury and a blessing in my life and for my family,” Herr said. “It’s brought us a lot of experiences that we otherwise wouldn’t have had. We’ve been able to get off the beaten path to see national parks, small towns, antique tractor shows, farm shows and cowboy music concerts. The King Air also makes it easy to visit family in South Dakota. Without the airplane, maybe we would only have a token South Dakota trip every year or every few years. The airplane enhances our quality of life and sustains family connections despite the 1,000 miles between us.”
A lifelong interest in aviation
Herr grew up in New Jersey, where he currently resides, among a family of recreational pilots. He spent a lot of time in the family’s Cessna Skyhawk alongside his
father, a farmer and lawyer. Cost-cutting grounded the Skyhawk as well as the teenaged Herr. But when Herr was 16, his father’s flight instructor Floyd Evans, who was also a dear family friend and TWA captain, volunteered to teach Herr if his dad would cover the airplane rental at Alexandria Field Airport in Pittstown, New Jersey.
“Floyd liked to tell people that he soloed me in three hours, but it was really 103 hours. I had well over 100 hours of time flying with dad in earlier years in the family Skyhawk. Dad wasn’t a CFI, so none of the time was loggable, but it was worthwhile time,” said Herr, who started the lessons with Evans during the summer of 1982. Herr received his private certificate in 1983 and his instrument rating in 1984. With his IFR ticket in hand, he thought his training was wrapped up for a while. Floyd had other plans. During his two weeks of college spring break in 1985, Herr added a commercial certificate, as well as CFI and CFII ratings, all at the age of 18.
“Floyd had a profound impact on my life,” Herr stated. “While it was impressive that he got me so many ratings so quickly, his biggest impact was convincing me to get my CFI. It is not that the CFI certificate itself was important, rather it was profoundly important how Floyd believed in me and saw that I could accomplish
Banyan
JUNE 2024
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 7