A Five-Year-Old Flew an Aeroplane Over Beijing

Tiger dads around the globe had reason to celebrate this weekend (and to cringe in jealousy) when Chinese media reported that that one Beijing man's five year old donned goggles and a tiny flightsuit and piloted an airplane over the Beijing Wildlife Zoo for a total of 35 minutes.

According to reports, He Yide, nickname Duoduo, steered an ultralight over a distance of 30 km and as high as 100 meters with "only a little” help from an instructor sitting in the backseat, who at one point stretched out his arms to demonstrate that the boy was flying the aircraft on his own.

His doting father, He Liesheng, became known as “Eagle Dad” last year after the media reported he'd forced his son to play in the snow. (Yide also went through 20 early-morning hours of flight training for his summer vacation.) He is not just giving his son a Putin-like fortitude, but also, perhaps, raising China's flying profile.

In his 2011 book about aviation in China and its metaphors for the country, James Fallows described China's great ambitions to become an aerospace leader. Fallows noted that it had the technology and the money to do whatever it wanted—but it still lacked "the 'soft' ingredients necessary for a fully functioning, world-leading aerospace establishment."

But He's main goal was personal: steering his son for the record books. "I am preparing video clips for Guinness World Records and the World Record Association to get certification for my son as the youngest pilot in the world," said He, who is from Jiangsu province. "Duoduo is very excited about his brave act and is in high spirits."

Not everyone is in high spirits however. Opinions on China's internet were mixed about the flying stunt. Wrote one user on Sina Weibo, according to China Daily, "As a father, he ignores the feelings of the child and only pursues his own purposes. Is that the education approach we aim for?"

"I admire such a father. I have been an aviation enthusiast since childhood, but I didn't have a farsighted father like him," wrote another.

He's family is divided too. "The men of the family support his method, while the older generation and women, such as the boy's grandmothers and aunts, disagree with it," He Lieheng, the father's elder brother, said on Monday.

He's goal to get his kid in the record books may not happen, as Guinness could have a little ethical quandry on its hands. Writes Flying magazine:

In 1996 a seven-year-old named Jessica Dubroff died in a crash along with her father and her flight instructor while she tried to become the youngest “pilot” to fly an airplane across the United States. The trip made Dubroff a short-lived celebrity as the national media covered the story extensively. Flying chose not to cover the Dubroff flight. We did report on the tragic aftermath, however, and continue to discourage in the strongest possible way age-related aviation record attempts. The FAI, the organization that oversees international records does not recognize any such attempts.

Another youngest pilot, Vicki Van Meter, began flying at the age of ten. A year later, in 1993, she took the controls on a flight from Augusta, Maine to San Diego in a Cessna 172. She appeared on Leno and visited the White House.

But after Dubroff's death in 1996, President Clinton signed into law the FAA Reauthorization Act of 1996, which made it illegal to set records as a student pilot. That would mean that some of Van Meter's records will never be broken in the US. (In a sad, unrelated twist, Van Meter died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2008 following a struggle with depression.)

Still, the FAA acknowledged in July that 17-year-old Robert Pinksten became the youngest person in the US to earn licenses to pilot both helicopters and private airplanes, having received his licenses within nine days of his 17th birthday. Jonathan Strickland, another competitor in the youngest flier race, claims to be the youngest person to pilot a helicopter and plane in the same day, as well as the youngest African American to fly six airplanes and one helicopter in the same day.

Tiger dad He isn't deterred, and he's not stopping with airplanes. In August 2012, He arranged for his son to take part in an international sailing competition in Shandong province, and, a month later, to climb the 3,776-meter Mount Fuji in Japan. Next, he'll oversee his son as he makes a trek through Kekexili, China's famously desolate region in the northwestern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, near Xinjiang. The journey will consist of walking, riding a bicycle and unicycle, and driving a car.