At 16, when most of us were racking our brains over board examinations or picking the right subjects/stream, Ayesha Aziz was already a step ahead.
In 2011, she received her student’s pilot license from the Bombay Flying Club, making her the youngest woman pilot in the country.
Aziz, a 21-year-old Mumbai resident, will again be flying high as she recently received her commercial pilot licence and will soon fly passenger aircraft as well.
Her liaison with the aircraft began when she would fly with her parents to her mother’s native town in Kashmir twice or thrice a year.
“While I would enjoy take-off and landing of the plane, my brother would be scared and always sleep during the flight,” she told The New Indian Express.
Aziz even had the opportunity to visit NASA in 2012 and meet former astronaut John McBride and her second biggest inspiration Sunita Williams in Mumbai.
She credits her family for being the driving force behind her laudable achievement, especially her father – a Worli-based businessman.
“I have always believed that knowledge and enquiry are keys to human progress. If my child had a dream which was achievable, I had to be part of the process and see that she realised this dream, Ayesha’s father told Times of India.
Next on her bucket list is to fly a MIG-29 fighter jet at the Sokul airbase in Russia.
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