Live Your Dreams Program coordinates flight for former pilot
By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — Flying has been a central part of Ladd Sharp’s life, which is why, at 90, the former veteran couldn’t stop smiling on Aug. 18 as he approached the plane that would take him on a trip around Arootsook’s skies.
Aroostook Republican photos/Natalie Bazinet
Ladd Sharp’s favorite part of the flight he took on Aug. 18, coordinated by the Live Your Dreams Program, was the takeoff. “When the wheels left the ground, I was free,” he said.
Right: a big smile and a thumbs-up, Ladd Sharp couldn’t wait to get back to the skies. Ladd got to spend his flight in the pilot’s seat, as the plane was equipped for pilot David Fernald Jr. to operate the vessel from the passenger’s seat.
It may have taken a couple of helping hands to get Ladd situated in the plane, but he seemed completely at ease among the familiar panels of dials and levers in the cockpit.
“It feels great to see the propeller in front again,” he said, looking through the windshield at the Caribou Airport’s tarmac.
The flight was arranged through the Live Your Dreams Program of the Maine Health Care Association, a statewide non-profit organization that represents 250 long-term care providers.
During his pilot days, Ladd would make a b-line to the airport after work.
“Once the wheels left the ground, I was free,” he said.
It was that same sense of freedom Ladd felt last Thursday, when pilot David Fernald Jr. of Aviation Unlimited took him for approximately an hour long flight. In keeping with Ladd’s past, he sat right in the pilot’s seat with Fernald beside him and Ladd’s attorney, Paul Dillon, riding in back. (Fernald a flight instructor, which means he’s equipped to fly the plane from the passengers seat).
“It just doesn’t seem real,” Ladd said before the flight, a boyish smile creeping across his face revealing his excitement for the flight.
Ladd currently resides at the Maine Veterans Home in Caribou, but warmly recalls the flights he frequently took with his wife, Dora, and their German Shepard, Shadow.
Living in the New Jersey area, they flew everywhere; Dora navigated, Ladd flew and Shadow sat in the back, loving every minute of the trip … except for the landings — Ladd laughed as he remembered how Shadow would lean way back in the seat anticipating touchdown. (Coincidentally, Fernald also has a German Shepard that enjoys rides through the skies).
The trio would fly to Boston for baked beans, southern New Jersey for pie and anywhere else they had in mind.
They had a small plane, “just enough room for Dora, the dog and myself,” Ladd recalled. Memories of his flying days are abundant and fond, and the former pilot shares his stories vividly.
“Dora was a pilot as well, and she had such a delicate touch — she could land that plane on a dozen eggs and not crack a single shell; when I landed, you knew it,” he said.
As he waited with the small crowd that had gathered to see him off, Ladd mentioned he’d been going through the flight plan in his head all morning.
“Are you going to fly it?” asked CNA Alanna McHenna, one of the smiling Maine Veterans’ Home employees that came out for Ladd’s flight.
“I hope not!” he quipped, and told his friends from the Veterans’ Home that he planned to do a lot of rubbernecking instead, taking in the sights of Aroostook County only the sky can afford.
Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
Pilot David Fernald Jr. of Aviation Unlimited gets the door for Ladd Sharp, 90, who was afforded the opportunity to take a flight through the Live Your Dream Program. Shown bringing Ladd to the Plane is Karen Page, activities director at the Maine Veterans’ Home.
From his wheelchair outside the tarmac, Ladd looked up at the clouds. “It might be a little bumpy up there today,” he said after a bit of analysis, more a statement of fact than an indication of trepidation.
Ladd didn’t become a pilot until after he’d left the military; he first served in the Navy until medically discharged, at which point he joined the Army.
As Ladd told the story of his service, some that had gathered for Ladd’s flight didn’t understand how Ladd could have joined the Army after being medically discharged from the Navy.
“The Army took me because I was breathing,” he humorously explained.
