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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She follows in the footsteps of her late father, a retired F-5 fighter pilot and former Boeing 787 Captain who always encouraged her to pursue a flying career. He was one of, if not the first, Royal Canadian Air Force pilot of East Indian descent. He, unfortunately, passed from glioblastoma \u2014 but not before seeing his daughter solo an airplane for the first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, Thind continues his legacy. She\u2019s the proud owner of a yellow M model Cessna 172 that she flies in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. \u201cIt\u2019s so much fun. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.. you learn so much. Plane ownership is one of the best ways to learn.\u201d In addition to flying, aircraft ownership comes with a host of other tasks, like keeping track of maintenance schedules, that are relatively new to her. \u201cIt\u2019s really rewarding\u201d, she says \u201clearning about stuff that you\u2019re not yet good at.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her father faced his share of career challenges as a man of East Indian descent in a very homogenous industry. Thind, too, notices being a bit of an outsider on occasion. But, she says, these events are relatively uncommon. By and large, the aviation community has been overwhelmingly supportive. \u201cI\u2019ve had a couple of negative experiences of racism and sexism, but it\u2019s a drop in the bucket compared to all the positivity I\u2019ve received,\u201d says Thind. \u201cThe aviation community is amazing. [The negative] is such a small part compared to all the support I\u2019ve received. I wouldn\u2019t be here if not for all the support from people, some of whom I haven\u2019t even met in person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she isn\u2019t busy flying or studying, Thind combines her skills in the liberal arts with her passion for aviation as a writer and interviewer on behalf of Fly For The Culture. As a woman and person of color, she hopes that by highlighting the diversity that presently exists in the industry, aspiring pilots from all backgrounds will be encouraged to see themselves represented in the aviation workforce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,16],"tags":[15,5,24,23],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/thind.jpeg",1024,675,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/thind-150x150.jpeg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/thind-300x198.jpeg",300,198,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/thind-768x506.jpeg",768,506,true],"large":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/thind.jpeg",1024,675,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/thind.jpeg",1024,675,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/thind.jpeg",1024,675,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Jake Roach","author_link":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/author\/jake\/"},"uagb_comment_info":3,"uagb_excerpt":"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...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions\/466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}