Today, the umbilical cord is cut and Luke commands his Piper Tomahawk beyond the comfy but rather closeted skies of his home aerodrome. No more just taking off, circling and then landing back at the aerodrome for Luke. Today its solo out into the blue and green yonder of the area where runways are scarce, instructors are out of sight and its just Luke, his aeroplane and the big blue Aussie sky. We chat with Luke about his experience and at the same time Sam and I talk about our first area command experiences 22 and 44 years ago. Plus, in our retro salute we share an epic first area command not in the blue yonder but the black yonder of outer space. This salute’s in honour of the recent passing of John Glenn, NASA’s first man to orbit the earth. We wish we could have miked him up, bought him a coffee and chatted about his legendary area command but alas that was beyond the humble budget of our little podcast so we’ll just make do with reminiscing. Today's learn more links: John Glenn: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mark-and-scott-kelly-john-glenn-our-hero/2016/12/16/d4a09dce-befe-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?utm_term=.c2175b8989cd