Daily Archives: June 20, 2014

For as long as I can remember, I have always been fascinated with flight.  Birds, airplanes, kites, anything in the sky amazed me.  I used to climb way up my grandparents’ huge magnolia tree and pretend I was a bird perched on a branch.  I’d imagine what it would feel like to leap into the air and look down from above as birds do.  Every time I’d hear a plane over head, I’d wish I was on board.  Always as a passenger though; the idea of me flying the plane never even crossed my mind.  You didn’t hear of girls growing up to be pilots, especially not from my small hometown of 15,000 people.

I flew for the first time commercially at age 20 on a college geology trip to the southwest desert of the US.  Instantly I was hooked.  From that moment on I craved that ‘rush’.  It wasn’t until I was about 25 years old and I heard an interview on the radio of a man who wrote a book on the Wright Brothers, their countless attempts to fly, and the obstacles (literally and figuratively) they had to overcome to succeed.  The speaker talked about how much our knowledge and ideas for human flight have improved since then, and this really got me thinking about my interest in aviation.  Not to mention my grandfather was a fighter pilot in WWII which always intrigued me, even though I know very little about him except he shot down a bunch of enemy planes & received a medal.  I went to high school with a guy who became a pilot, so I sent him a message over Facebook to discuss the “how to’s”.  I was so inspired by his passion and enthusiasm for flying, and somewhat envious that he started when he was a teenager.  

The more I researched what it takes to become a pilot, the more I realized it was actually an obtainable goal.  You don’t have to join the military or grow up in a family full of aviators to become a pilot.  Anyone with enough discipline and determination (and a birth certificate if you’re in the U.S.A.) can become a pilot!

In 2011, I went as far as contacting a flight instructor at the Moore County Airport in Carthage NC and set up an introductory flight.  I had all the necessary Private Pilot Gleim books and materials bookmarked in my internet browser, ready for me to place an order once I took the intro flight and made my decision.  But then….before my intro flight, I started sharing my newly found interest with family and friends.  Right from the start I got a lot of negative reactions and condescending remarks.  “Why would you want to do that?!”  “What, are you crazy?!”  “Women and airplanes don’t mix.”  “You have a husband and a child now, you don’t need to go for something like that.”  “What about your degree?  You’re just going to waste all that money?”  “It’s just too dangerous.”  Anything you can think of, I heard it.  I have low confidence to begin with, so it didn’t take much to change my mind….  Continue reading →

Posted by ashley8A6 in Flying Tags: dreams, flying, Girls can fly too