About Me

Hi Guys and Gals. Welcome to my storytelling outlet.

I’ve come to find that I miss writing. You may have already guessed this, but I love to chat, or as the youths say, “yap”. So much so that one of my best friends from flight training got me a tee shirt for Christmas and it says “Yapper University”. I actually went to college for journalism and, funny enough, my love of flying has rekindled my love of storytelling.

The real question I get most often is, “how did you find yourself in aviation?” Great question, it’s quite the story.

I’ve done more than my fair-share of odd jobs. From working with horses in sales barns and breeding farms to selling fine jewelry to building a tech company with my father, I was struggling to find a career that fulfilled my love of adventure, working with my hands, and love of numbers.

Fast forward to Summer 2020, a summer of infamy for most. Like all of you, I transitioned to a remote job. Both my roommate and I were working from home, and that did NOT work in a small two bedroom apartment. When our lease was up, I found us a home with more bedrooms for a home office. This new home happened to be under the flight path of Scottsdale Airpark.

Every morning, like clockwork at 6 am when the tower would open, the departures would rip out of KSDL right over my bedroom. At first, it was beyond annoying, but I knew I had to find a way to love it or else it would be miserable to live there. So I made a goal, learn how to identify airplanes based off of sound and silhouette.

I downloaded FlightRadar24 and began learning all about the jets that came into Scottsdale. Then I started getting curious, I downloaded Live ATC and listened to the tower.

One of my friends noticed my interest. For Christmas 2021, she bought me a Discovery Flight with a flight school out of Scottsdale Airpark. I planned to take my Discovery Flight during the WMPO golf tournament.

When the day arrived, February 11, 2022, I met my flight instructor for the day, Cody. I told him I wanted to fly over the tournament and I wanted to fly over a golf course where my dad and brother were playing golf. He was more than happy to oblige.

Looking back, I also realize perhaps the divine intervention that we didn’t hold short for 30 minutes for jet traffic with the influx of business jets. We started up, taxied out, and were cleared for immediate departure, a mini miracle for those who have flown GA into KSDL.

The flight was only an hour, it felt way too short. Cody told me, “you’ll never forget your first flight, your first solo flight, and your first check ride.” He was totally correct.

We landed, I got his card, and I left feeling on cloud nine. I remember calling my mom and my dad immediately; I think the first words out of my mouth were, “I found what I want to do.”

I began to investigate how to make this career transition. I took two flights and realized I needed to join an accelerated program. I knew nothing about flight training, I didn’t know the difference between Part 61 and Part 141, I didn’t even know what people meant when they said a “prop plane”. But I was determined to figure it out.

And figure it out I did. Looking back, as I write this story almost 3 years later, flying my first real job, solo in a Caravan, the journey really feels surreal. I feel blessed that I found this passion on my 26th year of life. I truly do believe everything in life prepared me for the present.

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