BURBANK : Angel Flight Pilots Provide a Needed Lift

An updraft from the mountains gently rocked the aircraft as John Shroyer sat with his hand on his stomach, holding in place the feeding tube that had started to slip earlier in the day.

“John, are you OK with this turbulence?” asked David Salo, a pilot for Angel Flight, a volunteer organization of pilots who offer their time, money and aircraft to fly patients to medical appointments. This flight--with Salo as co-pilot and fellow volunteer Kendall Hales as pilot--originated at Burbank Airport, and will take Shroyer from the City of Hope National Medical Center in El Monte to his home near Modesto.

“I like it,” said Shroyer, 54, who only recently has begun to hope that he had beaten the cancer which had destroyed most of his lower jaw. “It’s fun.”

Shroyer has flown with Angel Flight at least two dozen times since July, 1992, so often that he can pick out the landmarks from 8,000 feet on the trip from home to the City of Hope, where he has gone for his cancer treatments.

“If I had the money to take lessons and get a pilot’s license, I would love to do what they do for others,” Shroyer said.

Shroyer, diagnosed with bone cancer in 1984, had to rent a car and have his brother drive him down for his surgery before he discovered Angel Flight.

His brother later died, leaving Shroyer with no way to get to his appointments without the volunteer pilots.

Salo and Hales, both from La Crescenta, joined Angel Flight a year ago, taking about one mission a month with the 1966 Beechcraft Debonair owned by Hales’ father. Angel Flight is based in Santa Monica, but a quarter of its 450 pilots are from the San Fernando Valley, flying out of Van Nuys and Burbank airports.

“I’ve made some pretty good friends, and some of them have flown me only once,” said Shroyer, who often flies down with his 14-year-daughter.

“If it wasn’t for my daughter I wouldn’t have done this well,” said Shroyer. A few years ago, he said, he asked his doctors “if they could guarantee me I would live seven years to see my daughter turn 18. They said they couldn’t guarantee me seven days.”

He lost most of his lower jaw in operations to remove the cancer and Shroyer, who has a penchant for Cajun cooking, has not eaten a meal in almost four years, instead taking his nourishment through the tube in his stomach. The cancer has not returned in three years, and in a series of operations, doctors have been slowly reconstructing his mouth so that he might be able to swallow again.

On his next Angel Flight, Shroyer expects to learn if he will be able to start eating baby food. He’s hoping that his cancer will stay in remission, and this flight for treatment will be his last.

On the way back to Modesto, the plane flew past Lemoore Naval Air Station, and Shroyer watched as an F-18 Hornet took off and spun away from him like a dart.

“I’d give anything to be able to take off in one of those, just once,” he said.