Up in the Air

IT’S 6:00 A.M. AND A CRISP BREEZE BITES YOUR CHEEKS.

You circle the plane and run through your pre-flight inspection. Your hand glides along the propeller checking for knicks or scratches. Lifting the handle and opening the cockpit door, you slide onto the pilot’s seat. After placing a headset over your ears, the humming of the engine goes mute. You scan the dashboard and check the engine gauges' glow. Pushing forward on the throttle, you roll onto the runway. Your concentration builds and whirs along with the prop’s rotations. You push the throttle further. Eight thousand feet of illuminated centerline starts to disappear beneath you. Acceleration. You extend your arm to full throttle. Full speed. The pressure pushes you against the back of your seat. You take in a deep breath. Squeezing the yoke towards you, the nose of the plane starts to lift. You’re airborne. You’re weightless. The ground shrinks below you and sunlight pierces the windshield. You’re free.

It only took Vicky Kuo two trips up in the air in a tiny, four-seater airplane to make up her mind: “I’m switching careers.” Kuo realized that becoming a pilot was the passion she’d been looking for all along.

In Kuo’s previous life, she conducted medical research and managed a laboratory at a hospital in Rhode Island. It had been 20 years since she last sat in a classroom or took an exam, let alone picked up a textbook. But at the age of 40, Kuo traded in her lab coat for an aviation headset and took off on the demanding path to becoming a pilot.

“The day I scheduled my third flight, I was already on track to getting my pilot’s license,” recalls Kuo. “I took a leap of faith and gave my boss a one-year notice that I’d be leaving my job. I had the confidence that I would do whatever it’d take to be

successful in a career I knew almost nothing about.”

Kuo never looked back and never regretted her decision. She’s now Chief Flight Instructor for three flight schools on the east coast.

There are nearly 585,000 pilots in the US. Of that number, a mere 6.7 percent are women. Aviatresses, female pilots, airwomen... call them what you want. Above all, they’re an elite group of 39,000+ women with a passion for flying.

A look back at history uncovers a roster of female aviators who’ve paved the runway for women like Kuo: including the French “Baroness” Raymonde de Laroche, the first woman to receive her pilot’s license in 1910; Bessie Coleman, the first woman of African-American and Native American descent to become a pilot; and Niloofar

Rahmani, the Afghani Air Force’s first-ever female pilot. Yet regardless of the many barriers these women faced when breaking into an industry controlled (and still dominated) by men, a number of other hurdles require jumping for modern-day airwomen.

For starters, there’s finances. “The average flight student needs about $12,000 to cover the 55 to 75 hours of private lessons, books, and equipment it takes to get your private pilot’s license,” says Jen Cermak, a flight student at Kuo’s flight school in Warwick, RI. “That’s no pocket change.”

Fortunately, Cermak landed a job out of college at Cessna, the company that builds more training aircraft than any other manufacturer in the world. She found out her company would reimburse the $300 ground-training class, and on top of that, pay half her flight lesson fees. That

financial support alone piqued Cermak’s interest in flying.

“It’s a pretty big deal I was able to get a discount when lessons cost so much money,” she admits. “I feel lucky to have had that privilege many don’t.”

If you’re interested in piloting, Cermak recommends first taking an introductory flight—a trip in the sky with an instructor pilot—to feel out if going for your license is the right fit. “If you’re passionate from there, you should do everything you can to try and pursue it.” Then, there’s commitment. Erin Shireman, a “pilot prodigy” who grew up shadowing her parents with tenure at NASA and aerospace-giant Boeing, always had big aspirations. But her passion and commitment to flying was even bigger.

“As long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a Division 1 student athlete and go on to become an astronaut,” says Shireman. “A lot of people have had those same dreams, but realized the brains for math and science, and the persistence required to push themselves, isn't their thing. Thankfully for me, it was.”

Shireman landed a scholarship playing softball for the University of Texas and climbed the ranks as one of the university’s most academically-decorated student athletes. “I was one of a handful of females studying aerospace engineering…not to mention, the first UT softball player to graduate with an engineering degree.” Picking up flight hours in the off-season and pulling late-night study sessions, she managed to earn her private pilot’s license and land a job post-graduation with global aerospace company Lockheed Martin—all before the age of 23.

“I’d encourage any woman with an interest in flying to go try it out,” she says. “It’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be cheap. But you’ll have some of the most amazing experiences in the sky and meet some of the most amazing people along the way.”

Despite the barriers, there’s one thing Kuo, Cermak, and Shireman all agree on: piloting gives you a new perspective.

“When you’re up there [in the sky], everything is small. Everything is peaceful,” says Shireman. “One of my favorite quotes says it best, ‘A mile of highway will take you a mile. A mile of runway will take you anywhere.’”

The same is true for Kuo, who is working on new ways to introduce women—particularly young girls—to flying. “Up until now, I haven’t been actively engaged in pushing women to get passionate about flying,” she says. But this year is different. Kuo is moving forward on two new initiatives: a mentorship program for Girl Scouts to learn about flying and a program for financially disadvantaged communities that exchanges hours worked on plane restoration for flight hours at one of her schools.

“Whenever I feel good, I always reach out for something else,” says Kuo. “I love what I do, but could I do it better? Yes.”

By ERICA ZAZO