The CEO of High Flying Hangars accepted the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award from the FAA on November 6, 2025.
From a young child watching Lockheed “Connies” depart from Allegheny County Airport outside of Pittsburgh, to the serendipitous connection that led him to his aviation mentor, to the pilot friend who convinced him to move “lock stock and barrel” to Albuquerque—the arc of aviation shapes the life of Kenny Hinkes, CEO of High Flying Hangars.
So perhaps it’s no surprise (except to Kenny!) that the FAA has recognized his more than five decades of safe piloting with the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award, which was bestowed upon him during a ceremony amongst his family, friends, and airplanes in a High Flying Hangar at the Double Eagle Airport (AEG) on November 6, 2025.
The time has flown, Kenny says—so fast that even though the FAA looks for 50 years of incident-free flying for the honorees of its Master Pilot award, Kenny had notched 55 before the paperwork on his designation was complete.
Kenny’s aviation journey began in 1970. The Hinkes family had moved to Maryland by the time he was ready to start flying, and he logged those initial hours at Friendship Field, near Baltimore, now BWI. He trained with Friendship Flying Service, and he soloed a few miles away at Lee Airport (ANP), in Annapolis, adjacent to the “South” River, as Kenny recalls. “The real surprise for me following the award has been reflecting on all of the flying, with friends and family, and the adventures we made.”
The FAA triggered the flood of memories when it sent to him the documents marking official steps along the way. Each document now has been recertified with a blue ribbon, a testimony to the work put into each effort. In reviewing those pieces of paper, Kenny has had occasion to consider each milestone in his career, starting in the early 70s: his first medical and student pilot certificate, then the passing of his private, commercial, and flight instructor certificates, and his instrument and CFI-instrument ratings.
Kenny acquired many of the certificates and ratings down in Miami, Florida, at Burnside Ott Aviation—“these were the days before Embry-Riddle was big,” he recalls. He went on to fly as a professional pilot, instructing and eventually flying Part 135 charter operations for Cutter Aviation based at ABQ. Fellow pilot Drew Bednarzik had made the move before him, and enticed Kenny to cross the country by sending him postcards from his trips across the magnificent Southwestern U.S.
As time has passed, it’s the memories that have become more precious than the pieces of paper. Kenny remembers every stage of his life marked and made better by flying: “Fishing the Western River, flying to Bozeman, Jackson Hole, and along the Snake River, plus Thanksgiving trips to Memphis, and to the northeast,” as Kenny recalls.
Meeting mentor Rodger Gelder, a Beechcraft dealer, in front of his Bonanza one day served as the catalyst for Kenny to keep making those memories, and giving him the great support of his friendship as well as the ability to fly Gelder’s airplane when Kenny didn’t have his own. “From the Bellanca Scout to the Cessna 414, there were so many different airplanes along the way—all of them amazing,” he says.
The added lift allowed him to fly personally as well as professionally while he raised his family, and until success led him to purchase the first of his airplanes, one of which he still has, a pristine Beech F33 Bonanza. General aviation has been the thread linking him to success as well as community. “The biggest airplane drivers in the world step out of their airliners and climb into their Bonanzas and Barons, and that’s where their love is right there,” he says.
Kenny credits his family with being a continuous and lasting source of support for him—and it’s been made especially important to him as his youngest son Jack started flying lessons. With Jack, Kendrick Dane, John Badal, and Lisa deFrees, Kenny founded High Flying Hangars, and now he gets to live his dream building each day a company he believes in, with people he believes in. “We have such a close knit group,” he says, “that it’s really not like working. And I couldn’t do it without Jack, Kendrick, John. and Lisa, the whole team. It just goes to the heart of what we’re doing. We’re not just a bunch of MBAs who think we can make hangars.”
For those who want to match his 55 years of flying, Kenny offers a bit of tongue-in-cheek advice. “You need good genes to make it this long,” he laughs. But really, it’s just a matter of staying in it. “You just keep getting your medical renewed, and you keep taking biannual flight reviews, and pretty soon, here you are.”
Kenny’s lifelong love of flying can be captured in a recent memory. “Jack and I went up on a Sunday morning earlier this month in the 172, and we went low and slow down the Rio Puerco and took pictures of the fall leaves, the cottonwood trees. And there was no one out, and it was just spectacularly beautiful. And we were just looking at each other and smiling like, ‘how lucky can you be, really, to have that kind of freedom and fun? And you can’t explain it to anybody; nobody understands it if they’re not in the club—they just don’t get it.”
