Domino Thompson was flying high this summer — literally.
Thompson, a senior at Eisenhower High School, attended the Sooner Flight Academy in Norman and had the opportunity to not only go for an airplane ride, but to pilot a plane. The camp was the ultimate experience for a young man who, in elementary school, wanted to be an astronaut.
Thompson has since refined his goals. After considering a career in the Air Force, he has decided to become a helicopter pilot in the Army.
Thompson credits an internship at Fort Sill last year with helping him with his choice of careers. He interned with Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Morris in the Office of the Chief of the Air Defense Artillery, which Thompson said was a resume booster. The connections Thompson made at Fort Sill helped him earn a scholarship to attend two weeks of Sooner Flight Academy, he said.
Thompson said during his internship he shadowed brigade members, asking them what they do and why, saying the connections he made were invaluable. During the second half of the internship, he collected letters of recommendation.
“The internship was a big thing,” he said. “I could go into the Army at any time. I have three high-ranking people I can ask advice of.”
Thompson said he has been interested in flight for as long as he can remember, saying as a child he was intrigued by movies about airplanes. He said he wanted to be an astronaut so he could explore outside the Earth.
“What I like about planes and helicopters is that they fly. The freedom of being in the air sounded cool to me,” he said. “I like being able to move freely. Flying feels like freedom.”
Besides being on a commercial flight at the age of 3, this summer was the first time Thompson had been in an airplane. He said the first time he flew at flight camp, he was tasked with keeping the plane in a straight line with the autopilot on. The next time, he rolled the plane and put it into a steep dive.
“We got to stall it if we wanted to,” he said. “It was kinda fun.”
The third time he flew, the class conducted pattern flying where they did takeoffs and landings with the assistance of a pilot.
“It was really nerve-racking when I got handed the controls for the first time,” he said. After a few minutes, he realized it was not that hard, he said. “The plane flies itself. You don’t have to do much. There’s a computer screen with a little triangle and you had to keep it aligned. I thought of it like playing a game.”
His instructor told him not to stare at the instrument panel but to look at the horizon.
“It kinda felt like I was driving a car,” he said.
Thompson said the best part of the camp was feeling zero-gs.
“It was really scary. It felt like the floor was falling away from you but you ended up stepping in the air,” he said.
LPS aviation courses have helped stoke Thomspon’s interest in the field. He said the class on aviation careers is good for those who don’t know what they want to do in life. This year, he will take meteorology.
“Learning about the weather and reading the weather is really important before you go into the air,” he said. “Cloudy days are really hard flying. If you don’t know how to fly with instruments, you can’t fly.”
After graduation, Thompson plans to join the Army and learn to fly helicopters. His goal is to eventually join the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, which supplies aviation support for special operations forces.