Everett Long, a master pilot for five decades, receives award

Everett Long has spent more than 50 years taking to the skies as a pilot, and he managed a clean record during that entire time.

The 1957 Clarkston High School graduate received the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award. The Federal Aviation Administration presented Long, 84, of Reno, Nev., with the award for never having crashed an airplane or violated FAA rules orregulations. Long’s never had an accident or flown in prohibited air space, although he’s flown with the military on civil air patrol.

The award could be compared to driving without an accident or infraction. But in contrast to driving, the rules and regulations are changing and a pilot has to renew a license every two years. Long said those biannual renewals help pilots keep up good habits and unlearn bad ones.

“Pilots should never stop learning,” he said. “I don’t care how old they are or how many thousands of hours they have.”

The other tip he has for a clean flying record is to respect the airplane and make sure it’s well-maintained. Long has owned three planes in his time as a pilot, including a Cessna 172, which he purchased brand new in 1975 and sold in 1996.

Even though he doesn’t have his own plane anymore, Long has continued to fly by renting planes. The last time he rented a plane was in 2014 when he flew over the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

All that time, being a pilot also meant learning new technology — radios and equipment that have evolved over the years.

“Times have changed,” Long said. “A pilot has to keep up with that.”

Long has kept up with those changes since he began flying in 1955. Growing up in Clarkston, Long lived close to the airport, which fueled his interest in flying. During World War II, Clarkston’s airport was a U.S. Navy training base, and Long would look at the old airplane parts. His uncle was also a pilot and took him for his first plane ride.

Long was 15 when he took his first flying lessons with Albert Zimmerly, who was the instructor at Hillcrest Aviation at the Clarkston Airport. He was 16 when he flew a plane solo for the first time. When he came home and told his dad about it, his dad responded, “OK, time to drive the car.”

Long spent most of his career in Fairbanks, Alaska, where he flew a Cessna 172. Alaska relies on planes for transportation because there are few roads. During that time he was an air crash rescue firefighter and later became a co-founder of the Fairbanks Air Museum.

In 1990, he became the first private American pilot to fly through the Soviet Union with his 17-year-old daughter, Shannon, as his copilot. For 2½ weeks, they flew in a Cessna 172 following the route used during World War II to deliver planes to the Soviets.

The entire trip came about because he was appointed by the mayor of Fairbanks to be a commissioner for Sister Cities International. He was invited by a representative for the Soviet government, a high official who told Long that “he speaks for (President Mikhail) Gorbachev.”

“I was at the right place at the right time,” Long said.

Long said that the people they met on the journey were friendly and welcoming.

“There was no government involved, it was just a beautiful part of the country,” he said. “The flying community was just like the American’s flying community — different language.”

Long also noted the similarity between Alaska and Siberia, which both used planes as a significant mode of transportation because of a lack of roads.

“Just like Alaska, to get anywhere you had to fly,” he said.

The trip ended in Yakutsk, Russia, about 2,500 miles west of Fairbanks. It’s also the same route Howard Hughes flew when he went around the world.

Another memorable flight was in Alaska when he was flying with a dog musher friend. It was dark and dry and some snowflakes were starting to fall, building up static electricity in the air. At the same time, an aurora began to light up the sky.

“Only a pilot’s going to see those,” Long said.

Long said the aviation community is a close-knit group that doesn’t distinguish between a military pilot, commercial pilot or private pilot.

“You’re a pilot, period, and that’s hard for people to understand maybe,” Long said.

Some of Long’s flying buddies do have military experience, including one who was in the famous Top Gun program. Long and his aviation friends went to go see “Top Gun: Maverick,” released in 2022. Long asked his Top Gun friend how accurate the film was and his friend responded, “dead on.” The routes, the maneuvers and the operations of the plane were all celebrated for its accuracy. The only thing that wasn’t was “all the kissy, kissy lovey stuff,” Long said.

Some of his aviation experiences inspired others to take to the skies. He remembered when some French pilots came to Fairbanks to retrace the route of Hughes around the world.

A young woman in the press corps with the flying group went in a plane ride with Long over Denali (then known as Mount McKinley), the highest peak in North America. When she returned to France, she took flying lessons. Later she and four other women applied to Air France at a time when it had no female pilots.

Now she’s a captain for Air France. When she was first hired, Long and his family visited her in Paris.

“Aviation is a small world and it’s a wonderful world,” Long said.

Brewster may be contacted at kbrewster@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2297.