Article originally published by Rick Mauch on July 14, 2024 in candysdirt.com.

Bruce Graf has enjoyed a wonderful career in luxury development but now the owner of Grand Prairie-based Graf Developments is flying higher than ever.

Literally.

Graf obtained his private pilot’s license to fly helicopters in March. For the 61-year-old it’s the culmination of a lifelong dream.

“When I was a kid there was a show called Whirlybirds about a couple of guys who were called for emergency situations — things planes couldn’t do,” Graf said. “I always thought that was so cool.”

Graf said that impression stayed with him until he made the decision about six years ago to pursue a helicopter license. He buckled down, changed classes, and finished a course through Tarrant County College in about a year.

“The other course was more on my own. This one was more structured, which I need,” he said. “A lot was just proving to myself I could do it. I thought, ‘I could be flying a helicopter instead of getting to the end [of life] and wondering what if?’”

Bruce Graf: Adding Altitude Aids His Business

Along with the thrills that come with flying a helicopter, Graf also sees having a license as a benefit to his business. Instead of driving to work sites, now he can fly clients there.

“I think it’s another avenue. Now I can fly a real estate client over a ranch and see the layout, for example,” he said. “If Michelle [Wade, Graf Developments‘ designer] is doing a design and it’s 100 miles out, we’ll just hop on a helicopter and fly out.”

Graf said flying a helicopter is more challenging than flying an airplane, a challenge that also drew him in.

“You use all four of your limbs — hands and feet,” he said, noting that, along with steering and maintaining all the gauges, there is changing of frequency on the radio.

And there are the book studies, which he said is about 80% of the learning.

“We have to learn why things fly. What creates lift?” he said. “We have to become meteorologists, scientists.”

Among the many perks of flying, as someone who likes to get away from the world every now and then, Graf can now do so faster and more easily.

“I flew all the way to Ennis without doors last night, and it was exhilarating,” he said. “It’s the same feeling I get when I take the top and doors off my jeep. I’m looking straight down to the ground, and up to the skies.”

Graf recalled something a plane flight instructor once said about flying helicopters.

“He said, ‘I’ve flown every airplane out there. I tried to fly a helicopter and I couldn’t do it,’” Graf said. “I enjoy the challenge, reaching the goal, and at age 61 doing something people half my age can’t do.”

Read the original article on candysdirt.com.