When you take to the skies, real impact is measured in lives changed. In this episode, we meet Kley Parkhurst, Angel Flight East’s Pilot of the Year, whose volunteer flying has touched countless lives. Kley shares his journey from becoming a pilot in midlife to flying patients, pets, and supplies for causes like Hurricane Helene relief. Through heartfelt stories, he reveals how combining his love of aviation with service has brought him purpose, joy, and the chance to make a difference. From flying life-saving missions to coordinating pet rescues, Kley’s dedication exemplifies how passion can turn into meaningful impact.
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Pilot Of The Year: A Passion For Community Benefit Flying
In this episode, we have pilot Kley with us. Kley is our Pilot of the Year. He looks thrilled about it.
I'm worried about how I'm going to be Pilot of the Year in 2025.
There's always time. We can figure it out. Can you tell our audience a little bit about the flights that you do?
I fly for Angel Flight East and a couple of other Angel flights and other organizations as well, as a lot of pilots in Paws. COVID has helped me considerably in my community benefit flying career because I'm untethered from my physical office. As long as I have an internet connection, I can fly. That's facilitated. Oftentimes, I'll fly somewhere and work at the FBO until the mission and then fly home later in the day.
Where are you based?
I'm based in Culpeper, Virginia so I'm mostly an East Coast guy. I'm always surprised to learn that places like Tennessee and other places are about the same distance as Georgia so I should fly more in that direction as well.
How many flights would you say you do in a week?
I probably fly four days a week on average. I try to fly back-to-back missions. I try to combine trips so I don't fly empty. Lately, I've had a lot of success combining pilots and Paws trips with Angel Flight. I always ask the patients if they would mind if I carted along 1 dog or 2. Almost universally, they're very positive about it. That's been great.
This might be a hard question but would you prefer flying patients or dogs?
That's a trick question. I like flying so I like both. Psychologically, this might sound a little different but the dogs are always going to have a positive outcome as are the patients but a lot of the patients have some pretty dire medical conditions. That takes a little bit of a psychological toll if you would. I like the balance of both. Serving the patients is terrific, especially flying children and young people. I like both.
There you go. That's pretty easy. How did you get involved in flying patients, pets, and everything in between?
I went through the whole process in midlife of becoming a pilot. Once I became a pilot, I flew aerobatics for a while. I enjoyed that a lot but also I thought it would be a great way to learn proficiency. I've said recovery if you would because you fly upside down, stall, and spin on purpose in aerobatic. I thought that would be great. I had nowhere else to fly and I was trying to build some hours. I became IFR certified. I was looking for a bigger purpose in life.
I've worked hard and done a lot of things. I hadn't maybe donated to a community volunteer as much so it was a great way to combine both. That was the reason. About 99% of my flying is volunteer flying. I find other types of flying. For those people who are saying, “You want to go fly some more?” I'm like, “I'm not going to waste my air gas money on that because I have people or pets I can fly.”
Hurricane Helene Relief Efforts: A Community Coming Together
Can you tell us about your work with the Hurricane Helene relief efforts? You jumped in and did that all on your own.
It's life of its own. It arose in support of a person who organizes a lot of my animal rescue flights who had a daughter who lived in Western North Carolina and was very involved in fostering and rescuing animals as well. She lived on the top of the mountain in her neighborhood and got obliterated by the hurricane. The mom who's the organizer said, “Can you help fly some stuff down to her to help her out? She needs dog food and generating things like that.” We did that. I put the word out on the website, “People could donate things and drop them off at my hangar at Culpeper.”
I came back on the first day and there were a few cans of Chef Boyardee on the floor and maybe some paper towels. I'm like, “This is not going so well.” I flew some stuff down to North Carolina. The next day I came back and I couldn't get my plane in the hangar because people had dropped off so much stuff. The airport manager in the community of Culpeper decided to use my hangar as a collection point. We ended up flying maybe a dozen missions. By the end, we had a full tractor-trailer load and a giant trailer of stuff all down. It was amazing how the community came together for that.
The Logistics Of Flying Animals
Have you in any of your pet flights had any obscure animals or have they always been dogs and cats?
I consider cats to be a little obscure but that's a different question. A parrot is the closest thing I came to as an exotic animal. There are rescue missions that do sea turtles and other things. I have dogs from high-kill shelters in the South. Most of the adopters tend to be in New Jersey North for the most part.
My favorite day was the one time that you brought a dog to Wings and we got to babysit all day.
It's interesting. When you fly people through an organization like Angel Flight East, the logistics, coordination, and timing are all set. In the dog rescue world, it's up to the pilots to coordinate the logistics to a large degree. For the rescues of animals, say we've got ten dogs that need to go to New Hampshire and they can fly on Thursday. We go figure it out. I used to do a lot of one-to-one missions. I'm going to fly up and land and I would take the next trip but over time through the coordination efforts of some great volunteers, Culpeper has become the center drop-off point.
We have 3 or 4 planes flying in and 3 or 4 planes flying out. As you can imagine with weather, delays, and everything else, instead of everyone showing up at the same time, there's 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours. We have 20 to 30 volunteers who show up at Culpeper on a mission day, if you would, help offload and unload the dogs, take care of them, and organize the paperwork. We can make Wings Field a drop-off coordination point too if we can get a set of volunteers going. That would be great.
If we would ever give any of the animals back, we would claim them as our own.
I don't take my daughters or my wife on many of these trips because I'd have too many dogs and wouldn't be able to fly anymore. I have a whole portfolio of dog watchers, dog sitters, and overnight dog people because I'm often gone all day on these missions.
Memorable Flights And Unexpected Challenges
Do you have a flight that you would consider your most memorable one?
They're all memorable in their own way. I knew you'd ask that question. There was one where you fly a small plane and often encourage people not to pack large pieces of luggage because they don’t fit necessarily.
I know exactly what story this is.
I flew this one lady and she was a fantastic person. She and her husband decided in retirement that their mission would be to adopt and take care of medically challenged orphans if you would. She showed up with seventeen pieces of luggage. They’re small ones that I had to stick in all sorts of crevices in the plane. I flew them to Pittsburgh to drop them off at UPMC. It was great.
I flew home and she texted me, “I'm missing a single piece of luggage, which happens to be the kid's food because he's on the feeding tube. To get new food, we have to check him into the hospital and go through all this stuff.” I said, “Never mind. I'll fly back.” Luckily, it was only an hour and a half. That was one part. The other part was I was carrying 12 dogs and dropped off 11. One wanted to escape from his cage and snuck under his seat.
That backstory was not the one I thought we were going to go with. I thought it was going to be Emma Duke's mom.
I posted a lot of my missions on my Facebook page. The things I try to do with my flying with the people are two things. One is to try to bring them a little fun and understanding. I try to talk to them, understand them, and ask them questions about what they do. The real thing is, and this is if you're a pilot, when you're no longer earthbound, a lot of your earthly problems wash away. You're in the sky. It's a different thing to bring that joy to them, even if it's a temporary respite from what they're facing. That's what I like the best.
I love it.
The Impact Of Angel Flight And The Power Of Human Connection
It's super helpful that you share everybody's story online because it shows the impact that you're having on people. A lot of even potential users of Angel Flight and volunteer pilots who may want to sign up with us don't realize the impact they're having on people by providing a flight for them.
It's so compelling with the different use cases from verging to almost nearly life-saving. We're not doctors but we can be life-changing to people who have to go every three weeks to get medical care for the rest of their lives. One lady I fly all the time would take three days out of her life every three weeks to go get this treatment that she has for the rest of her life, instead of a round trip that’s a three-hour flight.
You're a perfect example of creating these relationships with people who started out as complete strangers. In a lot of your flights, you fly the same people over and over again. You become a part of their support circle, too.
I do. One of my recurring jokes is that I talk too much and make people fall asleep. I try to always take a picture of them sleeping. Sometimes they fake sleep so I'll shut up but sometimes they really are sleeping. It's funny.
Favorite Destinations And The Joys Of Flight
Is there a place that is your favorite to fly to other than Wings Field?
I love going to Wings Field. As far as I know, you're the only Angel Flight organization that's on the field. I've come and worked out of your office a few times. You guys are very supportive. You've watched dogs once or twice. That is great. My favorite place to fly to is Teterboro because I find that the most challenging and changing as a pilot. Sometimes it's so busy that they park my plane near the trash receptacle in the back because there's no other place to put it. Sometimes when you're 20 miles out, they'll say, “Fly over midfield and join downwind and land.”
It depends on whether the UN is in session and Madonna is at Madison Square Garden. It's very challenging. Sometimes they say, “Keep your speed up. There's a Gulf Stream 5 miles behind you.” I'm like, “I'm a Navy. I'm going as fast as I can.” Teterboro is my favorite. Here's the one thing about flying for Angel Flight purely as a pilot that's so fantastic. You go to all sorts of different airports. You find the class Bravo and go to nontowered airports in the middle of nowhere that are in the mountains. From a pure pilot perspective, it makes you a better pilot.
There are learning curves that come with flying for all of us. Kley, what is your final thought that you want to leave our audience with?
As a pilot, I can't think of any better use of your piloting proficiency and the challenges and rewards. I can't think of any other type of piloting as a private pilot or commercial pilot that is a better experience. It's amazing to be able to combine your love of flying with service to people and animals. I hope more people will do it.
“It's amazing to be able to combine your love of flying with service to people and animals.”
We appreciate you. You do so much for us. We truly could not do what we do without you. Sometimes, I look at our flight board and your name is on every flight so we are so appreciative. I know the patients are even more appreciative.
They are if they experience one of my landings and then maybe they second thought.
As long as you don't find any of those aerobatic tricks, they'll be fine.
I've offered, even though I can't on my planes. The other thing is I fly old planes, which have an interesting history. It'd be amazing for these people who don't know the first thing about airplanes, flying, airspace, or anything, how interested they are in, the mechanics of flying, talking to ATC, and things like that.
That's crazy. Thank you, Kley.
From a flight coordinator's point of view, Kley's going to be modest about it but he is the best. Sometimes I'll call Kley and he'll be, “Where am I flying, David?” I don't even have to ask. I want to let you know how much we appreciate you.
I appreciate that. I have to say that you and your crew there are incredibly responsive and available by text or phone 24/7. You're the leaders in this world. I appreciate that too.
I'm so happy we have this on recording.
We're going to have to blast it out to everybody.
Can we edit that last part? I meant to say you guys were just fair.
We're above average.
You can do better.
That's what we usually get.
You can get me more flights.
We'll do.
Done.
Thank you, Kley. We do appreciate you and everything you do.
See you.
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Maddy, this bottle of Tito's in the background is not ideal. Good thing we don't have this on video as often. I realized it halfway through and I kept trying to move my shoulder to be in front of it. I was falling out of my chair trying to block it.
All I could think about was the time Kley brought the one dog to the airport. That was not a great day for me. I had a panic attack. I had to call Maddy because somehow the leash slipped out of my hand and the dog immediately went running. The road where our airport is based is busier. All I could think about was if this dog got hit by a car, I would never be able to live with myself. I had to make an emergency call to Maddy and we had to catch the dog. It was not a great ten minutes of my life. I was terrified that something would happen to the sweet dog.
That's hysterical. I was shocked by how tame his commentary was. I feel like normally Kley makes a lot more puns and jabs, at least on social media.
It’s probably because he has to be on his best behavior for our recording.
Little does he know that this part is like Jerry's Final Thoughts.
When's lunch? Final Thoughts.
Flip it. I want to have my order loaded into the cart. I am ready.
Do we have to order it before we go or can we order it there?
We can order it there but in typical me fashion, I didn't bring my wallet.
David, are you coming with us?
I'll be right over.
I did not have my wallet unless you would like to be my Splenda fairy.
I can order it online too if that's easier before we're all hangry.
Before? I'm already there.
Love you all. Bye.
I like you, guys. Bye.
We like you too.
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