In the past month, Preston Allen, a 24-year-old pilot dreaming of a professional pilot career, has done something most people in the aviation would consider improbable. Atlanta-based flight instructor Dan Gryder found a way to get Allen a whole slew of ratings, including a Cessna Citation CE-550S second-in-command (SIC) type rating, all within the span of about a month.

 

When Allen’s ambitious training journey began on September 2, he was already quite an accomplished pilot, having logged a total of about 1,250 hours.