About a month ago, Nathan Davies was about 800 feet in the air over Macon giving a flying lesson in a Cessna 172 when he heard a sudden pop.
The engine had lost power.
“It became automatic to a large degree,” Davies said. “It’s like, ‘OK, I have a problem with my engine. What’s the safest thing I can do? Well, I’m going to need to land, so where can I land? There’s a hay field, but let’s look and see if I can make, well sure enough, I can make the runway.’”
Davies safely landed the plane. He said issues like that are things he teaches his trainees to be prepared for.
“That’s not necessarily the most glamorous thing that everybody loves about flying, but it is something that you train for,” Davies said. “So when you train for it, it becomes a lot better.”
By the time he was 7, Davies had lived in South Dakota, Texas, California and Alaska before his family settled down to live in the Bemidji area of Minnesota. He stayed there until he attended the United States Air Force Academy from 2009 to 2013, where he hoped to become a pilot. Because he didn’t pass the medical exam while at the academy, though, Davies switched paths and earned a degree in mechanical engineering.
He married his wife, Annebelle, in 2013, and they moved out to what is now known as Vandenberg Space Force Base, where Davies worked closely with Space X on the coast of California. He then spent time at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota troubleshooting nuclear missiles at the site. From there, Davies and his family moved to Columbus in September 2019. Davies worked about four years with the Air Force ROTC unit at Mississippi State University, then left that job earlier this year to become a full-time flight instructor.
“What I’m hoping to do is to open up the possibility for somebody to go flying in a way that gets them excited about flying,” Davies said.
When Davies, 33, isn’t working as a full-time flight instructor, he builds furniture, but with a twist. Aiming for both function and beauty, he uses repurposed wood, metal and, yes, even aviation-related materials. In the last six months he’s started making lamps from old taxiway lights as airports replace the lights on the runway with LED lights.
He also built a desk, which is displayed for sale at Rosenzweig Arts Center, from old runway lights and reclaimed wood.
“This is a pretty unique piece, and what you have to do is you have to find somebody who understands that you’re not offering them a desk,” Davies said. “You’re offering them a piece of art with a desk at the same time.”
Annebelle said Nathan is great at making exactly what other people want. She said his collaborative nature and strong work ethic makes him the perfect person to work with.
“He’ll just go out to the shop and make something, and it’ll be perfect,” Annebelle said. “It’s so insane how good he is, and he can bring things to life so easily and find solutions to problems that most people can’t.”
With his business, Northbase Flight, Nathan not only teaches a basic course on the 150-horsepower Cessna 172, he’ll teach more daring students how to fly a Bellanca Super Viking with about 300 horsepower.
“One of the things about flying, nobody flies because they were made to,” Davies said. “Some people fly because they want to make a lot of money, but most people decide to fly because they think it’s cool or they think it’s fun or, or something like that. And I love that.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 24 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
