Miami Podhurst Orseck appellate attorney Joel Eaton might be 76, but that doesn’t stop him from flying to meetings and oral arguments in his four-seat, single propeller plane—his preferred mode of transportation since serving in the Vietnam War.

Eaton earned his wings in 1968, after graduating with a bachelor’s degree from Yale University through a U.S. Navy scholarship. As a fighter pilot, he flew 91 combat missions over Vietnam, and another 59 over Laos after a year’s break. They were the scariest years of his life.