As a youngster, Donovan Boone eagerly anticipated visits to his grandmother\u2019s apartment building in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From her balcony in the structure that towered more than 15 stories, Boone had the perfect vantage point to watch aircraft arrive and depart John F. Kennedy Airport just one borough over in Queens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI lived in Brownsville, Brooklyn, but I had a grandmother who lived in East New York in Starrett City, which is now called Spring Creek Towers, said Boone, 29, an F-18 Super Hornet flight instructor. \u201cShe lived on the 20th floor which overlooked Jamaica Bay. There\u2019s a bunch of channels, and you could see the planes flying into JFK airport.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Boone, much of his time during those visits consisted of watching planes enter and disappear from the flight path. Naturally, he had questions. Where are they coming from? Where are they going?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c(I thought) that would be pretty dope to fly one of those types of planes and just get away,\u201d Boone said. \u201cThat drew me into aviation from the start, but you never heard anybody \u2013 especially around that area \u2013 say, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m a pilot.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those trips to his grandmother\u2019s house slowed as Boone became older, and he eventually left New York during his high school years when his family relocated to California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boone attended a STEM-centered high school in Southern California and enrolled in Atlanta\u2019s Morehouse College as an economics major upon his 2009 graduation from high school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While at Morehouse, Boone joined the school\u2019s ROTC program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn the summer, you got to do internships with different parts of the Navy,\u201d Boone said. \u201cThe first one I got to see was what being in a submarine was like and seeing what it was like flying in planes. I also got to see what it was like being on a ship, and seeing what I was like doing some SPECWAR (special warfare) stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2010, Boone\u2019s ROTC summer internship-type program allowed him to finally become acquainted with airplanes and ultimately set his career as a Navy pilot in motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat was like the first time I really hopped into a cockpit and somebody let me fly \u2013 I think it was a T-34 at the time,\u201d Boone said. \u201c(I was) able to pull up, turn around, do some loops. I was like, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s what you do? I can do this.\u2019\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boone graduated from Morehouse in 2013 and immediately began his full-time military career. Boone\u2019s first stop following his college graduation took him to Pensacola, Florida, for aviation pre-flight indoctrination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The experience included learning to fly, which Boone and his classmates practiced for a couple of months in a Cessna or Piper small aircraft. Boone said the aviation pre-flight indoctrination program also consisted of four weeks of \u201ctests and class.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After more than a year in Pensacola, Boone headed to Milton, Florida, to train in the single-engine T-6 Texan aircraft. While there, he spent another year learning more of the intricacies of flying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still a prop plane, but it\u2019s a little more acrobatic,\u201d Boone said of the T-6. \u201cYou can do more maneuvers, but you\u2019re still kind of getting your feet in the water at that point, traveling a little longer distances, talking to more people, just learning how to navigate in the airplane, and maybe spinning it around every now and then. The baseline of that aircraft is learning how to work with other people, learning where you\u2019re supposed to go, fly in formation with other planes \u2013 things of that nature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During Boone\u2019s stay in Milton, he learned he was selected to fly jets. The opportunity took him to Naval Air Station Meridian in Mississippi, where he trained on the T-45, a jet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With every step, the aircraft and training became more advanced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2016, Boone arrived at Virginia Beach \u2013 the place he currently calls home \u2013 where he became acquainted with and learned to fly the F-18 Super Hornet for the first time, along with learning how to work radar, learning how to deploy weapons and how to navigate the aircraft\u2019s systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was amazing,\u201d Boone said of his introduction to the F-18. \u201cThe first flight you ever do, the person in the back (seat) has a stick in the back as well to help you out if you need it, and then your very next flight after you don\u2019t know what happened, blacked out for a little bit and came back and landed, you just have the stick by yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These days, Boone is tasked with training naval aviators in the F-18 Super Hornet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Years have passed since he sat on his grandmother\u2019s balcony and watched the air traffic from JFK. He\u2019s grown from a youngster with aviation dreams to someone who now helps others achieve theirs through his role as a flight instructor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boone\u2019s passion for aviation and for the place he calls home hasn\u2019t waned over time. It remains the same, and it fuels him every step along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs my previous skipper used to say, \u2018Stay humble and hustle hard,\u2019\u201d Boone said. \u201cI never forgot where I came from, and I kind of pride myself on that. If anybody ever asks me, I am from Brooklyn. I\u2019m not scared to say it. I\u2019m not scared to admit that it\u2019s where I\u2019m from. I use that to let people know that you can follow your dreams. Never give up on it. I never thought, even up until college, that this was possible. It\u2019s a blessing.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a youngster, Donovan Boone eagerly anticipated visits to his grandmother\u2019s apartment building in Brooklyn. From her balcony in the structure that towered more than 15 stories, Boone had the perfect vantage point to watch aircraft arrive and depart John F. Kennedy Airport just one borough over in Queens. \u201cI lived in Brownsville, Brooklyn, but I had a grandmother who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,16,3,1],"tags":[53,54,28],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/donovan_boone.jpg",1024,683,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/donovan_boone-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/donovan_boone-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/donovan_boone-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/donovan_boone.jpg",1024,683,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/donovan_boone.jpg",1024,683,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/donovan_boone.jpg",1024,683,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Elton Hayes","author_link":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/author\/elton\/"},"uagb_comment_info":3,"uagb_excerpt":"As a youngster, Donovan Boone eagerly anticipated visits to his grandmother\u2019s apartment building in Brooklyn. From her balcony in the structure that towered more than 15 stories, Boone had the perfect vantage point to watch aircraft arrive and depart John F. Kennedy Airport just one borough over in Queens. \u201cI lived in Brownsville, Brooklyn, but I had a grandmother who...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":501,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions\/501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}