He taught himself to be a pilot. During World War II, he designed a machine used to train military aircraft crews to fire guns at enemy aircraft.
VOA: special.2009.01.14
She also wrote that while "there really isn't something akin to the FAA governing submersible operations, " her company thinks sub manufacturers should offer pilot training to the owners of machine.
As the passage implies, even something as seemingly simple as an airplane flying in the sky is actually just one part of a large sociotechnical system composed of various human and machine elements, from the pilot and airplane to a series of airports, communication and navigation systems, bureaucracies, regulations, rules and norms of flight, and more.