Learn to Fly

What was it that attracted you to the world of sky travel? Did you have a fascination with aircrafts as a child or were you introduced to flying later in life? Most of the female pilots I’ve met were introduced to aviation by a man in their lives, like a dad, brother, or partner. My […]

Flight training is hard—I mean really hard. I suppose it is meant to be hard: Passengers depend on their pilots to be knowledgeable and confident so they can land the airplane in any circumstance. In the same vein, many passengers are familiar with the technical aspects of flight training, but they don’t realize the hardest […]

“Tom, it’s not bad,” reassures Tom House, the mustached throwing coach of Tom Brady, during Brady’s “Tom vs. Time” streaming series. It’s July 1, 2017, during the NFL preseason, and Brady, armored in his shoulder pads and mixed-matched sportswear, is in Los Angeles working with Coach House to improve his throw ahead of his 18th […]

Becoming a flight instructor was the very last thing on my to-do list. If we’re being completely honest, very few pilots decide to do so on their own. So how did I find myself in this position? In 2009, Colgan 3407, a Continental Airlines passenger flight, crashed into a house after an aerodynamic stall. The […]

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: I was born without arms. I live my life by using my feet as my hands, and that’s precisely how I fly my Ercoupe. But I’m just one person with a disability who’s flown or aspired to be a pilot. Using my feet is natural to me. […]

Since 2014, Women in Aviation International has made a significant outreach to girls ages 8 to 17 with Girls in Aviation Day—established as an in-person gathering for young ladies. More than 120 events were hosted in roughly 20 countries by 2019, with about 20,000 attendees. In 2020, WAI pivoted Girls in Aviation Day to a […]

Everyone has that one teacher that had the biggest impact on their lives, whether it be a math teacher, a social studies teacher—or a flight instructor. If the teacher who had the biggest impact on your life was your flight instructor, we want to hear from you. We want to honor flight instructors through a […]

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s program for secondary education has reached a critical milestone, with the STEM-based curriculum now poised for use in 300 schools across 44 states. As AOPA gears up for its STEM Symposium later this fall, it celebrates the advance of the program, which has expanded its reach by 50 percent […]

Oklahoma State University has created a new institute aimed at supporting aerospace industry growth in the Sooner State and beyond. The Oklahoma Aerospace Institute for Research and Education (OAIRE) was formally announced during a ceremony Wednesday in Oklahoma City. University officials said the goal of the institute is to unite the state’s aerospace innovation economy, […]

National Aviation Day came to life in 1939, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued a proclamation making it so. The date—August 19—was chosen because it was Orville Wright’s birthday, and it honored the brothers who brought powered, controlled, heavier-than-air flight into reality. We celebrate aviation every day, but for today, we hope that you join us […]