Life has a funny way of winding common threads through people that you meet. For Natalie Plavney, who works at Cornerstone Chiropractic, and Tanner Watts, a flight instructor at Minot Aero, and Coddie Samples, a B-52 co-pilot at the Minot Air Force base; the common thread was the inspiration and passion that they all have for flying.
For Natalie Plavney, the seed for her passion of flying was planted quite early in her life as she and her Grandfather, John Faulkner, would talk about his days as a B-24 pilot in World War II. John was a member of the 320th Bomb Squadron, and the 90th Bomb Group, self-proclaimed as “The Best Damn Heavy Bomb Group in the World” and flying the B-24 Liberator in the Southwest Pacific theater. “We talked about his flying experience, and I still have all of his flight and logbooks” says Plavney. And she still thinks about him when flying. But the seed that “Poppa”, how Natalie and her husband Scott Plavney refer to her grandfather, would not necessarily germinate right away. It would take a career as a first grade teacher in Texas, a move to North Dakota with husband Scott, and raising a family, before Natalie would finally decide that perhaps becoming a pilot may be something that she would like to do.
It wouldn’t take long for Scott to pick up the notion that Natalie may want to pursue her private pilot’s license “after we kind of talked about me flying, it only took about a week for him to schedule my introductory flight at Minot Aero” and with that 30 minute flight Natalie knew she was all-in even though “I have never done anything quite as scary as flying. So, I look at flying as doing something scary, safely. I did go skydiving once, but this was a whole new thing for me” says Natalie.
As fate would have it, her instructor at Minot Aero was fellow Texan Tanner Watts. They had a lot in common according to Tanner, “we talk a lot about the cold winters in North Dakota” he laughs “and being Natalie has been in North Dakota for several winters, and this was my first, she kind of coached me through it.” But conversation would bring out another thread in their relationship. Tanner’s wife, Coddie Samples, was a B 52 co-pilot at Minot Air Force Base. But first, Tanner’s story, and how he so quickly got bit by the bug of flying. “I was at the hospital one day, and I watched the medical helicopter land and take off. My Mom was a nurse at the hospital, and she pulled some strings and got me a ride along on the helicopter” and you guessed it…Tanner was hooked. “The experience was kind of like being on a magic carpet ride. The helicopter went wherever it wanted to” Tanner explains. That was almost 5 years ago, and before his now wife Coddie was assigned to Minot Air Force Base. But more on the Tanner-Coddie story later.
For Tanner finding an instructor position at Minot Aero was in his words “what I had hoped for.” Soon he would build his flight student base, which included Natalie, to around 20 “but really, there are only 5-7 that are really serious and fly as regular as Natalie.”
For Natalie, flying once a week, usually on weekends, is what her schedule allows. “I have a full-time job, and a family, so I am happy with that schedule.” From flight instructor Tanner’s perspective “flying is not easy. It’s great if someone chooses to do it for fun. Most people would give it up with what they have to go through to become a pilot. But Natalie does it right. She prepares well, and she learns quickly” to which Natalie responds “Tanner is a great instructor. How he teaches is great. I don’t make a mistake. If I don’t do something right it allows the opportunity for a teaching moment.”

And now the story turns to now Capt. Coddie Samples. Certainly, she had the vision and was determined to fly? Coddie was commissioned into the Air Force in March of 2017. She was deployed to the Middle East as a Tactical Air Control Party, which means she was responsible for calling in air strikes. But yes, Coddie had a vison. The thought of flying one of those planes “made me think, why not me?” she says. And sure enough her journey to flying a B 52 began in 2021. She and Tanner met at a flight school in Santa Teresa, New Mexico in 2021. Coddie was getting her private pilot’s license and Tanner was working at the school while “knocking out my pilot training” according to Tanner. Fast forward and Coddie will end up qualifying for Air Force flight training. After flight training, her first flight in the Flight Training Unit would be almost 7 years after she was commissioned, on March 12th of 2024. Just 6 short months after that flight, on September 17th of 2024, she would make her first flight as a qualified co-pilot of a B-52. That’s certainly a lot of ground to cover in just 3 years. In the Air Force there are only 2 B-52 bases, and so Tanner and Coddie packed up and headed north after Coddie was assigned to the 5th Bomb Wing, and the 23rd Bomb Squadron at Minot AFB.
For Tanner and Coddie, there is certainly a commonality in their careers, but there is also a time “when we just leave it on the table” says when referring to their conversations about flying. Coddie will fly a B-52 mission on the average of once a week and “I am pretty sure we’re going to be in Minot for a while” which is good news for Tanner, albeit none of the three, Natalie, Tanner or Coddie are particularly crazy about the winters in North Dakota, but it seems that all 3 have taken the cold weather in stride.
For the Plavney family: Scott, Natalie, Scout (graduating this weekend from Minot North) and Aaron (7 years old and nicknamed AJ), Minot has been, and probably will continue to be home for a while. Scott works for Hess, and well, Natalie still has a few flying hours to log before she hangs the Private Pilot License plaque on the wall.
The common thread of a love of flying is what ties these 3 pilots together. They all took different paths to fulfill their vision(s) of being a pilot. From a first time flight on a medical helicopter, to a seed planted by a WW II B-24 pilot, to a “maybe that could be me” thought: Tanner, Natalie and Coddie certainly connected by flight. And none of them are looking back, only ahead to what life as a pilot brings for them in the future.