Twenty-one year old Xylene DeCoteau is a Certified Flight Instructor who aspires to be a commercial airline pilot. DeCoteau’s mother, who was a flight attendant, sparked her interest in pursuing a career in the aviation industry. Originally, DeCoteau wanted to be a flight attendant like her mother. However, after doing more research and participating in…
Alexis Thind is a private pilot, currently completing her commercial pilot certificate in Squamish, a municipality north of Vancouver, Canada. After graduating from the University of British Columbia with a major in Political Science, Thind discovered her love for flying. She follows in the footsteps of her late father, a retired F-5 fighter pilot and…
When five-year-old Pinky Patel insisted on piloting the air museum static display, her mom suggested that a flying career might be a great fit — for her brother. As a first-generation Indian-American woman, a pilot career wasn’t part of the “typical path.” Instead, they thought, she should become a doctor. But Patel didn’t want to…
Merryl Tengesdal is the first and only African American female U-2 pilot. Her military career included flying The SH-60B Seahawk in the Navy and instructing in the U.S. Air Force T-34C and T-6 Texan II, before joining the rarefied U-2 program. The U-2 is a unique platform that operates well above 60,000 feet in a…