MOSES LAKE — When John Swedburg made his first solo flight on March 24, 1971, he decided to keep a souvenir of the event.

The tail from the shirt he wore that day, complete with the date, the plane he flew, and the aircraft’s tail number.

“My wife asked me one day when I was going through my fireproof box early in the early years of our marriage,” Swedburg said last Saturday in front of a class of pilots at Big Bend Community College. “I had this shirttail there and some other aviation memorabilia in there. And she said, ‘where is our marriage license?’”

The semi-retired flight instructor smiled.

“It’s been in that fireproof box ever since,” he said.

Swedburg, who has been flying for 52 years and has taught flying at BBCC since 1982, was presented the Federal Aviation Administration’s highest award for civilian pilots on Saturday — the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award. To be eligible, a pilot must have flown for at least 50 years, be a U.S. citizen and have never had any airman certificate revoked.

“The Wright Brother Master Pilot Award is the most prestigious award the FAA issues to airmen,” said Robert Ticknor, program manager for the FAA Safety Team, during the presentation of the award. “It’s the best part of my job. I get to meet airmen who have exhibited professionalism and skill and aviation expertise for at least 50 years. And that’s more than most people spend just on the career ladder.”

Ticknor said the award would have been given sooner when Swedburg actually hit 50 years as a pilot, but restrictions imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic prevented it.

“You know, sometimes the best things are what we wait for,” he said.

According to Ticknor, Swedburg got just about every license and qualification available for pilots — a private pilot’s license, a commercial pilot’s license, a flight instructor license, even an unmanned aerial vehicle license in 2018 — and has flown more than 17,000 hours, landed over 56,000 times and filled out 26 FAA flight logbooks over the course of those 52 years.

Swedburg also taught over 2,100 pilots during the course of his time, Ticknor said, something he’s constantly reminded of as an FAA safety inspector when he meets pilots Swedburg trained in commercial airline cockpits across the region.

“You’ve had more of an influence than you will ever know,” he told Swedburg.

Swedburg, who said he went to college initially to become a pastor and not a pilot, said he’s always loved flying.

“It’s been a good career, but it’s never been a job,” he said. “When I went into full-time flying, the gentleman I was using as a designated examiner in Illinois said don’t do it, don’t go full-time, you’ll lose the fun. It will not be a good thing.”

“One day I was out flying with a student 38 years later, and I looked out the window and looked back at the tail and those words came to my head,” Swedburg said. “And I wondered when that time will come.”

“It was just so much fun,” Swedberg said of flying.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.