DANCING ON AIR
Vancouver’s Anna Serbinenko, a.k.a. Sky Dancer, never dreamed that she’d be flying aerobatic tricks at air shows all over North America
Growing up in the Soviet Union, Anna Serbinenko never dreamed that she’d be flying aerobatic tricks at air shows all over North America.
“I did not even imagine I’d be doing what I’m doing right now even 10 years ago when I moved to Vancouver,” she said.
“This is my office view,” she added, before doing a 360-degree roll over Point Roberts, followed by a big loop so the passenger in back of her Super Decathlon could experience the pleasure of flying upside down.
A Russian, born in Soviet Ukraine, Serbinenko became a Swiss banker by the time she was 25, then fell in love with Vancouver during a visit a decade ago and soon moved here. Ten days after that move, tired of having to hire planes or fly commercial for work, she flew her first airplane and discovered it meant so much more than going from Point A to Point B. “That day was love at first sight,” she said.
A couple of years later her business partner at the Canadian Flight Centre, where she is an instructor and chief financial officer, convinced her to give aerobatic flying a try.
“And it was like falling in love all over again,” she said. Her life has an amazing storyline. She was proficient with languages and math, skipped grades to the point she’d finished high school by 15 and was teaching Italian to kids 16 and 17.
After getting a bachelor’s degree in Ukraine, she left at 18 to pursue graduate and postgraduate degrees in Germany, Switzerland and London (masters degrees in business administration and in management; a PhD in financial mathematics, while becoming fluent in eight languages and conversant in two more and, as a sort of hobby, a bachelor’s degree in law). “I’ve been lucky,” she said, “learning always came easy to me.”
Oh yeah, and after becoming a Swiss banker and a single mom, she found time to learn how to play the guitar. “The transition to aerobatic pilot and flight instructor did not happen overnight,” she said in wonderful understatement. “Flying was not the original plan, I did not even know I would begin flying here.”
Serbinenko, still the only female Canadian aerobatic flyer, performed in 48 air shows north of the 60th parallel this summer, and a handful of others in the Pacific Northwest.
Of her American Champion-built plane, she said: “She likes tender loving care. If I look after her, she looks after me.”
Her son Ivan, now 12, was an old hand at flying her plane from the seat behind her by the age of six (flying is easy, it’s the takeoffs, landings, understanding all those dials and deciphering the coded language coming through the headset that’s the hard part).
These days, Ivan loves helping out with the mechanical work, wanders the air shows with a jacket that reads Stunt Pilot’s Son and eyes a career as an aircraft designer.
His patience and his helpfulness around the house were instrumental in her being able to pursue her flying career, Serbinenko said. It also helps that she doesn’t need much more than four hours of sleep a night.
Serbinenko hopes she’s a role model, an inspiration to kids, and especially girls, to pursue their dreams in traditionally male-dominated fields. “I’d like people not to think, ‘I can never do anything like it,’ ” she said. “I believe where there’s a will, there’s a way. Dream big, never give up and don’t take no for an answer.”
She is known on the air-show circuit as Sky Dancer because she performs her Cuban 8s, hammerheads and other aerobatic feats to Ave Maria, a song that is special to her.
“It’s beautiful and turns the graceful Sky Dancer into an aerial ballet,” she said. “But also, I believe God put me up there for a reason and I hope I get to touch people’s hearts, offer more than entertainment at an air show or a pilot’s licence at the school. “I hope to inspire and give wings.” We can all aspire to become the best version of ourselves, she said, adding she’s still working on hers. What is left for her to achieve?
“I still have my little things. I’m taking figure skating lessons, I’ve been training once a week since March. Just the other day I jumped a toe loop. So I’ve jumped a waltz jump, Salchow and now toe-loop.
“I’m having fun, but I still need to nail that triple jump.”