Sage Lyons climbed the steps of a C-130 Hercules aircraft at the 910th Airlift Wing of the United States Air Force base in Vienna, Ohio, for his first mission Tuesday but he was unlike all the other pilots and this mission was very different.

Sage is only 8 years old and his mission was to watch as real military men and women taxied him around the runways of the Youngstown Air Reserve Station.

The Sharpsville Elementary second-grader was chosen to become an honorary Air Force Reserve 2nd Lieutenant and "Pilot for a Day."

Sage has been undergoing treatment for leukemia for 16 months at Tod Children's Hospital, Youngstown, said his mother, Melissa Stiles. "It's been quite rough," she said of the last year.

While in the hospital, Sage was building a model airplane when hospital personnel saw his interest in planes and nominated him for the "Pilot for a Day" program.