LA JOLLA — Few 16-year-olds can say they learned to fly before they could drive. Tommy Graham II, an incoming La Jolla High School (LJHS) sophomore, celebrated his birthday last week by heading to the Ramona Airport and solo-flying two airplanes: a Piper Cherokee trainer he’s flown since age 12 and his father’s Turbo Cessna. After posing for photos, Graham dashed to the DMV to get his driver’s license. “It was a busy day,” he said. “To be honest, I was much more nervous about the driver’s test.” A third-generation aviator, Tommy is named after his grandfather, a World War II pilot who received the Distinguished Flying Cross and three Air Medals after flying 210 combat missions in China. Tommy’s father, Joe, started flying when he was 14 and spent 33 years as a US Airways captain. He has accumulated about 28,000 flight hours. Now that he has his student pilot’s license, Tommy said he couldn’t wait to follow in the family footsteps. “I would absolutely love nothing more than a career in aviation,” he said. “I heard that if you love your job, you never work a day in your life. That’s exactly what I want to do.” For now, Tommy still has to receive instruction from a flight instructor on the ground. After high school, he hopes to attend the Air Force Academy or Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Almost every weekend while growing up, Tommy and his father practiced flying from the Montgomery Field Airport where the family planes are based. He has since racked up 80 flight hours. “My dad always hinted that he wanted me to fly,” Tommy said. “I remember one day he put me in the captain seat of the airplane and we pulled up to the runway. He told me to put the throttle in all the way and once the air speed indicator gets to 65, pull back and you’ll be in the air. Then he said he’d tell me what to do from there.” When he’s not up in the air, Tommy serves as the starting center on the LJHS junior varsity football team. He is also a drummer for The Intellectuals, a rock band he formed with friends about six months ago. Still, aviation remains his primary passion. “It’s true freedom,” he said. “When you’re up there soaring over everything and it’s just you and the airplane, it’s like you’re flying yourself. It’s a feeling unmatched by anything else.”