Tucker Gott

Tucker Gott is a paramotor pilot, and a popular YouTuber.

He has more than 1.5 million subscribers on his eponymous YouTube channel.

Introduction-

Tucker Gott was born on 6 April 1995.

He hails from Asbury, New Jersey, United States.

His mother, Kim Gott, is a commercial hot air balloon pilot.

Tucker’s grandfather was a pilot; he got his private pilot license at a young age and went on to become a fixed-wing pilot; he crewed on a Boeing B-17 as a mechanic and flew Stearman aircraft, Cubs, etc.

Tucker has a sister, Lindy Vickers.

Love for aviation-

At 2, Tucker’s mother took him around in her hot air balloon in a local area, this was his first experience of flight.

Later, his grandfather was a huge influence on him; he used to share with him the stories of him flying the aircraft and landing it in his friend’s field as at that time, the regulations weren’t strict.

Tucker envied his grandfather’s times and wished to have been born in his generation of lenient aviation regulations and was disappointed as he couldn’t enjoy flying aircraft like his grandfather due to stricter aviation rules.

Thankfully, later, he stumbled upon paramotoring and fell in love with it, as it allows one to fly freely without many restrictions.

RC planes, discovering paramotoring & PPL-

Thanks to his love for aviation and airplanes at a young age, Tucker got into RC planes, as they were more accessible to him at that time; till the end of his middle school, he was toying with the RC planes.

At that time, RC planes were powered by Nitro fuel, nickel metal hydride and nickel-cadmium batteries on 72 MHz.

At 13, while in middle school, while watching the RC planes videos on YouTube, Tucker stumbled across the paramotor videos and got inspired by them; even though he wanted to fly paramotors, he postponed it for later.

At 15, he started taking airplane lessons for his private pilot licence (PPL); during that year, he accumulated 15 hours and soloed a couple days after his 16^th birthday in a Cessna 152.

At 16, Tucker continued flying and did some cross-country flying and worked his way up to 45 hours and got his PPL right after he turned 17.

He learnt flying at the airport where his grandfather previously flew; he introduced Tucker to this airport.

An interesting fact- Popular pilot YouTubers, Petter Hörnfeldt, Kelsey Hughes, and Joseph Diebolder, also flew Cessna 152 aircraft.

Education-

Tucker did his schooling from North Hunterdon High School, New Jersey.

After completing his schooling in 2013, he joined Rowan University, New Jersey to study for electrical engineering; but he dropped out from college to pursue his passion of paramotoring.

Career & saving up for paramotoring-

At 15, Tucker started working at a local airport, picking weeds; he also did summer camps.

Later, a skydive operation moved into the airport, and he became euphoric, as it was the first time, he saw a skydive operation.

Eventually, the airport owner, Linda, introduced Tucker to the skydiving center personnel.

And during the second year of operation of the skydiving center, he secured a job there as a tandem waiver guy and golf cart driver; he used to also put and pull the harnesses of the people; at that time, he was a junior in high school.

After working in the above-mentioned jobs for a year, Tucker got upgraded to a parachute packer and a video editor at the skydive operation; at that time, he was 17 and was a senior in high school.

This job was a decent paying one, and he started saving money to buy his first paramotor.

After working for a year as a parachute packer, Tucker had saved up enough money, around $8,000 to buy a paramotor.

At the end of 2013 summer, before joining college, in July 2013, he withdrew $8,000 from his bank account to pay for paramotoring training and paramotor gear.

The start of paramotoring-

Initially, Tucker wanted to train himself to fly a paramotor as he had a PPL, understanding of flight characteristics, and experiences of flying airplanes, RC planes and working at a skydiving drop zone; but many people encouraged him to receive proper training.

After researching online, he stumbled upon Aviator PPG in Florida, as he was impressed by their adventure videos, he decided to get trained by them.

So, Tucker booked his training in August, and shipped his gear to Aviator PPG and drove his 2005 Subaru Forester from New Jersey to Lake Wales, Florida for training.

Here, he was trained by Eric Farewell; the training consisted of ground school, learning about regulations, weather, gear, and a lot of kiting.

For his first flight, Tucker purchased a BlackHawk 125 motor in August, and at that time, he was flying a 26 Elektra wing; later, he bought his first paragliding wing, an Ozone Buzz Z3.

His first paramotor flight was in an evening at Lake Wales, Florida; he was able to fly in his third attempt which lasted for nine minutes.

After completing training, Tucker returned home with his gear and continued paramotoring and progressing on his own.

Even after completing his training at Aviator PPG, he returned to this place several times to take their newer courses and become more skillful.

Dropping out of college for paramotoring-

During the time Tucker started receiving training from Aviator PPG, he joined Rowan University to study electrical engineering.

Even though he was doing decently in the classes, he quickly realized that he wasn’t enjoying electrical engineering.

As Tucker was enjoying paramotoring at the time, he transitioned from engineering to paramotoring.

At that time, he flew 160 hours in just four winter months.

Tucker flew many cross-country flights in his paramotor and won the Icarus Trophy in 2017.

He recommends Aviator PPG and Team Fly Halo for paramotor training and recommends reading the ‘Powered Paragliding Bible’ book.

In 2019, Tucker got featured on ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!’ book (on page 19).

His YouTube channel-

Even though Tucker started his eponymous YouTube channel on 18 June 2009, he published his first video, ‘First Landings in a Cessna 152’ only on 5 June 2010.

As of July 2023, he has 1.59M subscribers on his eponymous YouTube channel and has 84.3K followers on Instagram.

Tucker earns from a variety of sources like advertisements on his YouTube channel, merchandise under the brand ‘Risky Biscuits Co.,’ sponsorships, and affiliate marketing; he also accepts donations on Patreon.

He films his videos with GoPro cameras.

Tucker also has another YouTube channel, ‘Tucker Gott Uncut’ and has a website.

Personal life-

Tucker was in a relationship with Jaclyn.

He is an ailurophile.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Tucker Gott?

Share with me in the comment section below.