Welcome to This Aviation Life. We created this site to share general aviation with anyone who might be open to learning about it. We are passionate about flying, and we’re passionate about teaching. But mostly, we’re passionate about the people of general aviation and the places our airplanes take us.
George and Sarina are both FAA certified flight instructors, one with much more experience than the other. George brings years of flying and instructing experience, the courage and curiosity to dive into tough topics, sometimes wisely, sometimes rashly, and one of the best writing voices you’ll come across. George is super smart, and he’s the brains and charm behind much of the content on the website. Sarina brings experience in the online media world. She is the author of hundreds of aviation articles, has written for aviation websites and companies we all know, and she has a knack for explaining complicated issues in a way even George can understand. She brings a little bit of sarcasm and a lot of questions. She’s the enthusiasm behind the website.
We hope that this becomes a place where we can share the beauty of general aviation with you. The people and places you’ll come across in the aviation world are, quite simply, the most delightful you’ll ever find. There’s something about the miracle of flight that brings people together and bonds strangers in a way that strangers don’t otherwise bond. There’s something about landing on a grass strip on a mountain top, or flying an approach alongside the bright lights of the Vegas Strip, or tying your airplane down on the ramp at the small airport near an old friend’s house that makes this life seem a bit more… splendid. The people and places of aviation bring us closer to what real life – in our opinion – should consist of: fresh air, smiling faces, laughter, exhilaration, and responsibility for a safe, successful flying career. This is general aviation at its absolute best.
Enjoy!
More About Us…
George Scheer has been a pilot for 
more than twenty-five years, a flight instructor for more than twenty years. He holds an Airline Transport Pilot certificate with single- and multi-engine land and sea ratings and a flight instructor certificate with single-engine, multi-engine and instrument ratings. He has given more than five thousand hours of dual instruction. For a number of years and for more than a hundred and fifty missions, he served as the chief pilot of a charitable organization flying desperately ill children and their families to necessary medical care around the nation.
For more than fifteen years George has served as the Chief Flight Instructor of the Wings of Carolina Flying Club, one of the largest and oldest flying clubs in the nation, operating continuously since 1961 and named by AOPA in 2015 as one of the ten best flight training organizations in the United States.
George grew up in North Carolina and graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He has written magazine articles on a variety of subjects and has published several books. For twenty-five years he broadcast classical music and jazz for WUNC Radio, the public radio station licensed to the University of North Carolina.
Sarina Houston is a an active flight instructor and widely published, prolific, aviation writer. She holds commercial and flight instructor certificates with instrument and single and multi ratings and is an avid tailwheel pilot. She grew up on a ranch in Idaho. Her first flight there as a teenager, in a 172 off of a gravel strip at her dad’s ranch, changed her life. It ultimately led to her matriculation and graduation from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, from which she holds bachelor and master’s degrees. She has developed course material and managed ERAU programs at campuses worldwide. She has interned at Southwest Airlines, but has chosen, for now, to become a career flight instructor and she is the best. Her passion for teaching, her devotion to her students, and her example as a successful woman in the aviation universe is simply inspiring. She has long been an advocate for women in aviation and has been a member and supporter of organizations like Women in Aviation, for whom she has established overseas chapters, and the Ninety-Nines. You will find her writing online on a wealth of topics, from starting aircraft engines, to affording flight training, to overcoming anxieties, to famous aviation accidents, to the gender politics of the aviation industry, to any number of technical and analytical examinations of airplanes, flying, and flight training. She has written for well-known general aviation companies, such as Cirrus and Redbird and for such aviation organizations as the AOPA. Her writing is unfailingly informed, spirited, creative and relatable. In even her most technical articles, her enthusiasm and her open and encouraging personality shines through.
Sarina has flown a Piper Cub, a P-51 Mustang, and a brand new Boeing 737-800 out of Boeing Field, but she has said that the most memorable, most meaningful flight of her life was her CFI checkride. We know her students feel the same way about every flight with her.