Sky-High Adventurer
Member Darshaun Nadeau on the thrills and freedom of taking to the skies.
Darshaun Nadeau visited the Mojave Air and Space Port in Southern California on a whim during a 1987 family vacation. On display was the Rutan Model 76 Voyager, the first aircraft to fly around the world without refueling in 1986.
Nadeau, now 44, who was inspired to obtain his pilot’s license, in part, because of his childhood encounter with the Voyager, returned to the base earlier this year. By chance, he met the plane’s pilot, legendary aviator Dick Rutan.
Rutan’s brother, Burt, designed the world-breaking aircraft, as well as the Long-EZ, a homebuilt airplane recently purchased by Nadeau.
“I met [Rutan], and I was so excited. I wanted to brag about my new Long-EZ project,” says Nadeau, one morning in the Winter Garden. “He’s, like, ‘If I can give you any advice about this at all, don’t fly that plane. Do you hear what I’m saying? Don’t fly that airplane if you want to stay alive.’”
An adventurer at heart, Nadeau says he was born to “hippie” parents on an island with no electricity or running water in Northern California’s Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta. As a teenager, he took up sailing, surfing and rock climbing. He and his father trekked in the Himalayas for one month, where they were caught in a freak blizzard that dumped 1.5 meters of snow.
When Nadeau sold his tech startup in 2005, the entrepreneur bought a 15-meter sailboat and journeyed 28 days from Japan to Hawaii. He also earned his pilot’s license and, in 2014, bought his first plane, a four-seater Cessna 182.
Flying to remote landing strips at places like Lake Pillsbury, in Northern California, Nadeau enjoyed camping trips in the wilderness, surrounded by nothing but bald eagles, elk and bear scat.
After additional flying lessons, he acquired a special endorsement to fly a Cessna 185 (“the ultimate bush plane”) and bought one. To save money on lessons and fuel, Nadeau also purchased a 1946 Aeronca Champ, which he calls “the coolest little plane.”
“You just hand-crank it,” he says. “You feel like you are back in the early days of flying. You can open up the windows, stick your head out, take some pictures—things you would never want to do in a 185.”
Nadeau is ready to fly his Cessna 185 into the wilds of Montana, Utah and Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, where he might have only one pass to land alongside rivers or inside ravines. He has also purchased a private airport in California, where he is building a home.
As for the Long-EZ, the same model in which country singer John Denver died, Nadeau says he will take Rutan’s advice and sell the plane.
“There is this feeling of incredible freedom when you are flying,” says Nadeau, who is also a keen amateur triathlete. “With that tremendous freedom is also a level of tremendous constraint…that you have to respect to such an incredible detail, otherwise your life could be on the line.”
Words: Nick Narigon
