One pilot is offering his skills and his heart to change all that. He’s giving sick kids a chance to soar through the skies and away from their troubles — even letting them be the pilot for a few precious moments during flight, through his nonprofit Flying Vikings.

“This, for me, is a calling,” said Paul Hansen in an interview with LifeZette. “I left the securities and brokerage world to follow God’s voice.”

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Hansen is aided by a crew of volunteer pilots. According to his website, FlyingVikings.org, these pilots “have hearts as big as Texas.” They take flight in small, single-engine aircraft.

Hansen began Flying Vikings more than 10 years ago as a hobby while living in New Jersey. His mission is simple: Take sick or disabled kids for an airplane ride.

“This, for me, is a calling … to follow God’s voice telling me to help sick and disabled kids.”

His generosity soon took off, and before long his work turned into a registered nonprofit. This past Saturday, Flying Vikings came in for a landing at an airport in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where excited kids were waiting.

During their flight experience, little pilots sit in the cockpit and take the controls under the watchful eye of the real pilot. They are also given instructions through a quick “flight school” before take-off, which includes touring the plane. They receive a flight certificate when they land.

Hansen said he feels this is a calling from God.

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“In New Jersey, I realized I no longer wanted to be in the securities and brokerage business — it is full of greed, as well as a fair share of ‘sharks’ of the business world. Literally, one day I received a message to pull into the nearest library and open a magazine. When I did, it was an article on missionaries and kids,” he said. “I was getting clear instruction from above.”

Kim Cheeseman, whose son Noah suffered a traumatic brain injury, brought him to the Murfressboro Airport in Tennessee last Saturday. Hansen and his volunteer crew were waiting to take the special “pilot in training” on a 30-minute flight.

Noah had a fall in a bathtub when he was just 4, and today suffers seizures, ticks, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and migraines, his mom told the Fox Nashville WZTV. “It’s good for them to know that other people don’t care (if they’re sick), and don’t judge them,” she said of Noah’s flight experience.

Noah joined 30 other youngsters in Murfreesboro for the event. Middle Tennessee State University, the Experimental Aircraft Association and other local pilots volunteered for the event, which was the first for the Tennessee city.

Hannah McIntosh is now a young aviator, too. She is battling a rare cancer and is facing upcoming surgery. Her flight was a chance to zoom away from all of that.

“She loves going and doing things, and now with this she can’t. So this was perfect,” Lori McIntosh, Hannah’s mother, told Fox Nashville WZTV.

Hannah is battling a rare cancer, so her flight was a chance to zoom away from all that.

Hannah loved piloting the plane and being so far away from land – and cancer. “Everything looked so small and tiny! It was awesome flying a plane!” she told WZTV after the flight.

Hansen and Flying Vikings are operating on almost no budget, and welcome donations, large and small.

“I welcome help, and I am a good steward of how donations are spent – 100 percent goes to the kids. I have specifically set up this nonprofit to work that way,” he said.

Hansen is very sensitive to what illness brings to a child as well as the child’s family.

“Friends start drifting away, because a lot of familial friendships are made through kids. And so you have a family in isolation, dealing with the health crisis of the child they love so much,” he said.

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“I have learned so much since starting this — including the fact that many older kids serve as caregivers for their younger, sick siblings. Mom and Dad are out working, so the whole family is incredibly pressured.”

Hansen is committed to serving in his way, following a family tradition.

“My dad was a pilot, and I remember finding his flight books when I was 10,” he said. “My great uncle, Otto Koppen, developed the STOL (short takeoff and landing) aircraft — capable of taking off and landing in the space of a tennis court. It’s in my blood, I guess.”

Is there anything else he needs to continue his missions of mercy?

“Prayers,” he answers instantly. “Prayer can do so much, and we humbly ask for them from anyone so inclined.”