Luc Zipkin
YP 1
Middletown, CT
Luc Zipkin is the Founder of Young Pilots USA, also serving as President of Chapter 6 in East Haddam, CT. From September 2020 to September 2023, he served as President of Young Pilots USA, in which capacity he oversaw national-scale operations and advocacy efforts. Since September 2023, he has transitioned his role to Vice President of Finance. He first got involved in aviation through his father, who got his pilot's license as a teenager.
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He was previously Director of Content for the Purple America Initiative, a Seattle-based youth political discourse organization with over 400 members, and previously worked as a glider tow pilot at the Sugarbush Soaring Association in Warren, VT. He is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in Sport Aviation, AOPA Pilot, and Vintage Aviation News magazines.
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He is a sophomore at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT studying political science, design, and engineering, and graduated cum laude from Kent School in Kent, CT in 2022. Luc speaks 4 languages, and is an Eagle Scout and a recipient of the Judith B. and Howard B. Wentz, Jr. College Scholarship Prize in Engineering as a result of his work helping to build a two-time national championship-winning solar-powered car. He holds an FAI Sporting License, and is a member of the Explorers Club of New York.
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As a pilot, he started out in gliders and mostly flies old taildraggers. He has over 550 hours of total time across 20 types and is a Commercial Pilot with ASEL, Instrument Airplane, and Glider ratings. As the pilot of the Coast-to-Coast Cub flight, he was one of the youngest people to ever fly solo across the United States, and the youngest to do it solo in a Piper Cub.
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Luc lives in Middletown, CT while in college, but spends as much time as he can at the airport.
