He has taught more than 750 students in his 45-year flying career, but none more important than his grandson.

Carroll Joye, a 2003 inductee of South Carolina Aviation Hall of Fame, has personally logged more than 16,500 hours of flight time and issued approximately 1,500 flying licenses and ratings.

But on a recent autumn afternoon at Orangeburg Municipal Airport, Joye could only watch from the ground and give his grandson instructions over the radio.

It was Blake Cramer's first solo flight.



"Go up one more time and come around. You're dropping your nose a little bit," Joye said.

"Is this still considered a solo flight because you're helping me?" Cramer asked.

"Do you see me in the airplane with you?" Joye answered.

The Edisto High School senior had to contend with other distractions, as well, such as his mother in tears from the stress of watching her child all alone in the air.

Even though the solo flight was almost a complete surprise sprung by his family, Cramer performed well, taking off and landing three times during a 20-minute period, proving that aviation fuel still runs in the family's blood.

"Once I walked in here and saw a video camera and a (still) camera, I sort of started expecting stuff," the 17-year-old said. "All of a sudden, my mom didn't know anything.

"I saw my granddad filling out the log book for solo, and I said, 'Oh, crap.' I was nervous until I made that first landing. After that, it was OK."

Joye said he had every confidence in his grandson, a confidence borne from observing Cramer's calm adaptation to new situations.

"Yesterday was the first time we'd flown in about a month, and it was the first time he'd flown this airplane he's using," Joye said prior to Cramer's solo. "Usually that's a problem, if you change airplanes on a student, even though it's the same make and same model. It just feels a little bit different.

"But yesterday, he took this thing for a couple of landings and did real good. I knew then I was going to solo him."

Blake said his case of nerves dissipated quickly until the end of the flight.

"I was enjoying it until I got on my final leg, and then I started really focusing on what I had to do and how I was going to land," Cramer said. "(Landing) is one of the toughest things to do. You're going from one element to another. You have to make sure you don't come in sideways."

Blake's mother, Margie Cramer, said it was her father who fostered her son's love of flying.

"He really started getting interested when he was about 7 or 8, when he went flying with my dad," Cramer said. "One Christmas, my dad took all the grandkids flying. Ever since then, Blake's been really interested. Daddy also bought him a DVD about flying lessons.

"You could tell he was hooked when he started getting into that."

Joye said much of the credit goes to the Cramers' neighbor, who operates Dry Swamp Airport in Cordova.

"(Blake) is an excellent student, and we owe a lot of that to Kurt Von Graff," Joye said. "Kurt has taught him a tremendous amount that he doesn't even know he knows yet. He taught him a great deal, although it wasn't official instruction.

"When we really started instruction in earnest about a year ago, he had a lot of knowledge."

Von Graff said Blake began hanging out at his airport nearly two years before the Cramer family moved next door.

"Then he started to show some interest, and I took him flying, even though he actually got airsick at first," Von Graff said.

"I can give him ground instruction and information about navigation and aerodynamics and teach him about engine maintenance and overhaul. He picks up pretty quickly," he said. "I enjoy teaching him because it's not much fun to teach someone who doesn't want to learn. It's fun for me because he wants to pick up the information."

Cramer's first love, and the reason for his sporadic flight training from Joye, is music. He said for the moment, flying is another hobby -- one he hopes to pursue further when he has more time.

"I have a band, and maybe I will be able to fly to gigs or help other people out with flying," Cramer said. "I don't want to be an instructor because you have to be devoted to flying 24/7 for that."

Joye said the attributes that have helped Cramer become an accomplished musician -- Cramer plays 15 instruments and writes music -- make him a good pilot.

"The key thing is he picks it up real fast and pays attention to what you're saying," Joye said. "He pays attention to detail. There is so much to flying when you go from two-dimensional to three-dimensional and you're up there in space and you have a lot of stuff going on all the time."

At the end of Cramer's solo flight, after he taxied to a stop near the terminal for the last time, Joye approached him, scissors in hand, to perform a time-honored aviator tradition -- cutting the soloist's shirttail -- despite Cramer's protests.

Since there were often no radios in the early days of aviation, the instructor would tug on the student pilot's shirttail to get his attention. A successful first solo flight indicates that the student can fly without the instructor, and, therefore, there is no longer a need for the shirttail.

"They find the most expensive shirt that you wear first," Cramer said. "I had a crappy shirt on this weekend. We could have done it then, but no."

Margie Cramer said she was "a nervous wreck" during her son's solo flight.

"I'm so glad it's over with. I knew he could do it, but I'm glad he's back on the ground," she said. "Maybe I'll fly with my son one day. He always said he wanted to fly like granddaddy."

A firm hug reiterated the bond between teacher and student, grandfather and grandson.

"He told me to go up three times today, so I did what he told me to," Cramer said. "He's helped me out so far."

T&D Staff Writer Phil Sarata can be reached by e-mail at psarata@timesanddemocrat.com or by telephone at 803-533-5540. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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