Never knew this about Roddenberry, but the story of Worf’s aviation addiction I’ve red of before.

From the Star Trek Set to Flying Jets
In his high school days, Gene Roddenberry borrowed a copy of Astounding Stories from one of his classmates. This was to become the start of Roddenberry’s fascination with science fiction.

Not many people know that Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, started his career as a military pilot flying 89 combat missions on the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. During his military career, he was involved in two aircraft crashes and was awarded the Air Medal and the

Distinguished Flying Cross
It was in the South Pacific where he first started writing, selling stories to flying magazines, and later poetry to publications such as The New York Times. Upon leaving the military Roddenberry joined Pan-Am, flying long-haul on the Clipper Eclipse for four years. One day he was deadheading on a Lockheed L-049 Constellation when his plane experienced an engine failure and subsequent fire.

Crashing in the Syrian Desert with 36 people on board, seven crew members and eight passengers were killed in the crash, and Roddenberry, aged 25 years old at the time, was the ranking surviving flight officer.

Taking command of the situation, he was credited with saving the lives of the remaining passengers and facilitating their rescue. After this event he resigned and began writing for television, and Star Trek was born.

Now to that half-breed Klingon bastige.

Acting in Star Trek Leads to Aviation
Fast forward a few years to the second Star Trek series, ‘The Next Generation’ and we get to the star of our story, Michael Dorn who plays Worf, the first Klingon to serve in Starfleet.

Dorn’s Worf would become a fixture on the show, appearing in 175 episodes of ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ between 1987 and 1994, and in 102 episodes of ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ between 1993 and 1999.

He appeared on the big screen in ‘Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country’ (1991), ‘Star Trek: Generations’ (1994), ‘Star Trek: First Contact’ (1996), ‘Star Trek: Insurrection’ (1998) and ‘Star Trek: Nemesis’ (2002). As Worf, Dorn appeared onscreen in more Star Trek episodes and movies as the same character than anyone else. He recently reprised the role of Worf in Season 3 of Star Trek Picard.

Dorn had always had a fascination with aviation, leading him to many air shows and a collection of years’ worth of Air Classics Magazines. In 1988, Greg Benson, a friend who worked on the show with him, suggested he take up flying. This coincided with a writers’ strike, giving him a five month break from the show, so Dorn contacted Gunnell Aviation at Santa Monica Airport to work towards his license.

His journey into flying began the same way many do, in a Cessna C172. He still recalls the nerves he felt ahead of his first solo flight. “You pull over to the side, [the instructor] gets out, and he says, ‘OK, take it around’.

“I got to the end of the runway and was getting ready to take off, and I thought to myself, ‘OK, Mr Big Talk, you wanted to learn how to fly. Let’s see what you can do’.

“I was nervous the whole time until I came around and landed. After that first landing, it was just like one of those things where you say, ‘OK, I can do this’. I just kept going around and around. In fact, they had to tell me to stop.”

Then, one day, he got a phone call inviting him to fly with the Blue Angels. They had contacted Woody Harrelson from ‘Cheers’ to go down and do one of their media flights, and he had bailed at the last minute. Somebody had told them Dorn flew and they called him.

Dorn really enjoyed his flight with the Blue Angels, and, realizing it was possible to own an ex-military jet, he started down an adventurous and rewarding new path.

He damned sure did at that, living the dream via owning, among quite a few others, a YT3 Shooting Star, a Cessna Citation 501SP business jet, and the crown jewel of his collection: this gorgeous F86 Sabre.

From where I sit, Dorn looks to be one hellaciously lucky sumbitch.