Thea Allen: From Towing Banners to Restoring a Super Cub

Thea Allen might be too busy to sit down and come up with a clever mantra describing her approach to life in general and aviation in particular. But if she did, it would probably sound something like, “It can be done. Just don’t expect it to be easy.”

On second thought, that line seems too long and not creative enough for this instrument-rated commercial pilot and registered nurse who is also adept at aircraft restoration, repairs in the field, and online content creation. Taglines such as “Just do it” and “Think different” would work if a certain sneaker company and a computer maker had not already claimed them. 

Let’s just say the main message Allen is spreading is that aviation is attainable, whether you are seeking a private pilot certificate or pursuing a career in the cockpit. The work is difficult and demanding, but ultimately rewarding. Sometimes the hardest part of succeeding in aviation has less to do with getting your foot in the door than with navigating a career path that suits your goals. It also helps to be flexible and, yes, creative when that path takes an unexpected turn.

“I was lucky in that I grew up in an aviation family,” Allen said. “Most of my immediate family members, as well as aunts, uncles and cousins, are pilots. I have been able to learn from their experiences.”

Some of those are the stuff of family legend.

Allen’s grandfather served in the Navy, and while he was not involved in military aviation, he was interested in learning to fly and used the GI Bill to help pay for flight training after leaving the service. He built a career in aviation and had many pilot jobs including being hired to fly Jimmy Hoffa, the union leader who was president of the  Teamsters union from 1957-71.

“Hoffa would give gifts to his employees, and I remember Grandpa had a gold ashtray that said ‘gift from Jimmy Hoffa,’” Allen said. “I think Grandpa was the right person for that job because he didn’t talk a lot. You could take him on a four-hour road trip, and he would sit there the whole time and not say a word.”

The discretion that made him a good employee for the controversial labor leader unfortunately kept him from telling many of the stories that helped define his career. Allen said she regrets that she did not try harder to pry some of those tales out of him. She did learn later that “the attorney general’s office subpoenaed her grandpa’s logbooks to get information about where Hoffa had been.”

“He died when I was 15 or 16, before I was able to really approach him about his work experiences,” she said. “I feel like I would have been better-prepared for working in aviation if I knew more about the things he did.”

Despite never receiving a full download from her grandfather, Allen still had plenty of support from her family. Her father, an A&P mechanic with inspection authorization, runs a shop at Lenawee County Airport (KADG) in Adrian, Michigan, where Allen essentially grew up with a wrench in one hand and a control stick in the other. Like many airplane-obsessed young people, she soloed at 16 in her family’s Piper J-3 Cub but did not complete training for her private pilot certificate before leaving for college at Western Michigan University.

Once immersed in school, she largely paused her pilot pursuits.

“I always had a job in college, so I didn’t come home much and didn’t do much flying,” she said. “As soon as I got back [after graduating in 2017], I started training.”

Allen received her PPL in December 2017, instrument rating in February 2018, commercial certificate in July 2019, and landed a job towing banners in February 2020 with Air America Aerial Advertising, a major towing operation based in Genoa, Ohio. In many ways, this turned out to be a defining move.

While she had always had affection for Piper Super Cubs, the towing job was a deep dive into the type, which made up much of the Air America fleet. Allen said the company’s owner, Jim Miller, was known for building and maintaining high-quality Cubs.

“These are not your typical working airplanes,” Allen said. “These are Super Cubs you would want to own. They had 180 hp, engine monitors, extended wings with extended flaps—they were wonderful to fly.”

She began racking up hours towing banners with a wide range of ads, from political candidates’ policy messages to wedding proposals, birth announcements, and gender reveals to campaigns for national businesses.

“We were based in Ohio at Toledo Executive [KTDZ], but we traveled all over the Midwest and beyond,” Allen said. “I remember going as far as New York once. Then there was the year when I became the ‘Chicago girl’ and spent most of the season there, towing huge banners for Geico.”

The regular cross-country missions gave Allen valuable experience and added hundreds of quality hours to her logbook.

“In the end I think I logged more hours flying cross-country than actually towing banners,” she said.

Towing is also how she met her husband, Dalton Allen, a pilot with Delta Air Lines who also followed an unusual and encouraging path to a flying career.

After joining Air America as a ground crew worker, Dalton started logging dual instruction during cross-country stints with towing pilots who also happened to be CFIs. They would let him fly legs on long trips, a practice that built his hours quickly. Soon he had his private and commercial certificates and was towing full time.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, he was thinking about finding a different job, but Miller talked him into coming back, and that is when he and Thea met. It is safe to say they hit it off.

“We met in 2020, were engaged in February, 2021 and married in April the same year,” Thea Allen said.

Her husband went on to fly for SkyWest before moving to Spirit and then to Delta in April 2024. 

“Between 2018 and 2024 he went from ground crew to Delta,” said Allen, noting that his experience is sure to inspire young pilots not necessarily drawn to the standard path toward flying with an airline.

Though some instructors warn their students to stay away from banner towing, Allen said the job can be a valuable experience, as it was for her and her husband at Air America. She advised pilots interested in the job to do their homework to make sure they are joining a reputable operation. It could lead to a rewarding career. 

“In my case, I never once felt uncomfortable in Jim’s aircraft because he went out of his way to make sure they were as safe as they could be,” she said.

The towing experience, especially her time in a particular airplane, 6AB, set Allen on a path toward Super Cub ownership.

“I have always been a Cub person, and after working in 6AB, I knew that I had to find one of my own,” she said.

Finding the right one would take Allen along another unplanned route. “It started on the deep, dark web of Super Cubs,” she said with a laugh.

Although the internet might be the ultimate example of “too much information,” Allen said she learned a lot by carefully picking out the most useful bits of Cub wisdom. Soon she was ready to shop.

By word of mouth, she found an experimental 1985 Super Cub with 670 hours total that had been sitting in a hangar in Brainerd, Minnesota, for many years. The woman who owned the airplane had purchased it from the original owner and had put only about 250 hours on the Hobbs over the last 20-plus years.

“I was amazed by the low time, but I also knew the airplane needed work,” Allen said.

Did it ever. While she was able to start flying the Cub after some basic maintenance, she did not feel she could trust it on long flights, so she spent lots of time in the pattern and within gliding distance of the airport.

The main source of doubt was a vibration that showed up between 2,350 and 2,400 rpm. She could not quite trace it, and after checking cylinders and the cams, her dad suggested the propeller could be the culprit. They replaced it with a Sensenich ground-adjustable prop, which was a nice upgrade but had no effect on the vibration.

At her wit’s end, she took the airplane to her old boss, Miller, who quickly pulled the cylinders. Then she took those to Kline Aviation in Brooklyn, Michigan, where the shop discovered hard-to-spot cracks in three of the four. Mystery solved.

In fall 2024, Allen bought four new cylinders and topped the engine, also adding new, larger pistons and a new carburetor for good measure. The rebuild boosted the engine to 160 hp, and now it flies like one of Miller’s Cubs.

You might have gotten the idea by now that the Allens do a lot of juggling like any growing, young family. But they manage to keep general aviation in the picture. With a 4-year-old son and a second child due any week now, they are planning their next project—a four-place Cub using the well-tested Javron fuselage kit.

“There are going to be four of us, and we plan to keep flying together,” Allen said. “And building your own airplane tends to be the most affordable way.”

This feature first appeared in the May/June 2026 Issue of Plane + Pilot magazine.