Among flying circles in Lakeway, Sydney Grgurich is a rare bird.

Like an eagle taking its first flight, Grgurich of Lakeway soared through the skies when she earned her student pilot’s license on her 16th birthday Aug. 8.
The junior at Lake Travis High School studied books, went over checklists and took lessons for two months from flight instructor Jeff Brinkman at various airports in Lago Vista, Burnet, Georgetown and San Marcos.
“I really wanted to solo on my birthday, so I did two lessons a day,” Grgurich said. “So we would go out (flying) a lot. I really was into it.”
The teenager was eager to fly by herself, but got some butterflies in her stomach before the big day.
Her family came out to the airport to cheer her onward and upward.
“It was nice to have my family there and all their support,” she said.
Once she got climbed in the Skyhawk 172, Grgurich was ready to go.
“I was nervous the day before with anticipation, but when I was out there on the ramp (to the runway) I was excited and I knew I could do it and it just felt really, really cool,” she said. “I could not stop smiling to myself.”
Brinkman noticed the change in his student’s confidence.
“When we went there on her birthday and people were waiting, she was trying to kick me out of the plane,” Brinkman said of his student’s solo flight at San Marcos Municipal Airport. “The day before she didn’t want to do it, and the day of she’s like ‘Can you get out now?’ I said, ‘No, let’s make one more practice run.’”
When it was time for her to take the controls and fly solo, Grgurich’s nerves kicked in one more time before she settled down to the task at hand.
“Once I took off, I was thinking, ‘I have to land this. OK, here we go.’ I kind of got nervous,” she said. “When I was coming around to start my landing pattern, I told myself I can do this. You can’t really have a doubt because when you have anxiety it takes over what your thinking process is and you can’t have that happen.”
As she watched her daughter come in for her first landing, Kim Mulloy overcame some jitters as well by remembering her daughter’s composed nature.
“Sydney is a cautious person, so I know she wouldn’t try to do anything beyond her skill level,” Mulloy said.
Brinkman shared in her emotion as he paced nervously and stayed in radio contact.
“I was more nervous and excited than the first time I soloed,” said the instructor who is also a Lakeway Police Department sergeant.
As they watched from the ground, Grgurich took off and stayed in a left traffic pattern to form three circles and between each leg performed a touch-and-go, which requires landing on the runway for a few seconds and taking off immediately.
“We practiced those so many times at other airports to really get the hang of it, and I did three really good ones,” she said.
Once she completed the circuit, she couldn’t wait to celebrate.
“When I came back in and turned the plane off and was bombarded by people. I couldn’t even breathe,” she recalled. “It was all very joyous. It was like out of a movie.”
Her parents were thrilled with their daughter’s accomplishment.
“I was just unbelievably proud. It’s one of her first huge achievements,” Mulloy said. “This was kind of the ‘wow’ thing that was really a turning point.”
Grgurich wanted to follow a long-time pilot tradition in which a new pilot’s tail feathers, or shirt tail, is clipped at the back after his or her first solo flight to symbolize that an instructor no longer has to pull on the trainee’s shirt to get his or her attention. However, friends and family signed her T-shirt in so many places that it would have removed a few signatures to be clipped.
Were it not for her family’s move to a house next to the Lakeway Airpark two years ago, the teen who admits to having a fear of heights might not have pursued flying.
Although her stepfather and father are both pilots, Grgurich didn’t express much of an interest in planes when she was younger.
“I’ve just been in this environment and I have the opportunity, so I figured why not learn to fly because it’s right in my backyard,” she said. “I thought it would be fun and cool. I enjoy it.”
She said she relishes the feelings of freedom and empowerment.
“It’s this really liberating feeling to know that you can fly,” she said. “You can be in planes and look out the window, but when you are doing it yourself it’s a lot different and I like that.”
Grgurich also said learning to fly has made her a better driver.
“I find flying a lot easier than driving because there’s no traffic. There’s rules and regulations, but they are a lot different,” Grgurich said. “Because I concentrate so much when I’m flying it gives me the motivation to concentrate when I’m driving.”
“We call that greater situational awareness,” Brinkman chimed in.
She hopes that her pilot status will open more doors to future job or volunteer opportunities to fly in supplies or transport patients with agencies such as Peace Corps or Red Cross.
It also will significantly cut down on boarding times.
“I know I want to travel a lot during my life and I feel like that would be very cool if I could go to places without having to go to airports. I’ve been in airports way too much,” she said. “They are too busy and too crowded and smelly.”
As a student pilot, she is prohibited from flying with passengers. Lakeway Airpark also prohibits anyone without a pilot’s license from flying in and out of the runway.
Grgurich’s family is looking forward to her flying solo as they take a second plane to Illinois to visit relatives later this year, but they are eager for her to earn her private pilot’s license when she turns 17, so she can fly friends and relatives on vacations.
“We haven’t gone south of the border, yet. That’s kind of our next adventure,” Mulloy said.