Flying before driving: Fla. teen soars through solo flights on 16th birthday
FORT PIERCE — When Ava Shelly took to the skies to get her glider pilot’s license, she needed a ride from her parents to the airport.
That’s because the Port St. Lucie high school sophomore didn’t yet have her driver’s license.
Will she be a certified world record holder?
Ava received her private glider pilot’s license Jan. 21, her 16th birthday. The same day, she took her first solo helicopter flight and a solo airplane flight — an accomplishment that might make her a world record holder as the youngest female to do all three in a single day. The Shelly family is in the process of sending documents and verification to Guinness World Records to record the claim.
She now has her student pilot licenses in helicopter and solo airplane — the equivalent of a learner’s permit — but needs to wait until she turns 17 for a full helicopter and airplane pilot’s license.
At 5 a.m. — about the same time she was born 16 years ago — Ava left home house for her birthday celebration, first to West Palm Beach for her 7 a.m. solo airplane flight. By lunchtime, she and her family were at New Hibiscus Airpark in Vero Beach for her private glider pilot test. By sunset, she was taking her first solo helicopter flight.
“I was more just excitement and butterflies” said Ava about her birthday solos. “I knew I was going to be safe. I was confident in my abilities. My instructors explained and reassured me that they were confident in my abilities. No one was really worried for me. That helped to boost my selfesteem. I felt I was confident, I was ready and I knew I what I was doing.”
She passed her driving test four days later.
Spreading her wings at age 10
Ava has been flying since she was 10, when her late grandfather, a former Eastern Airlines pilot, gave her a Discovery Flight experience for her birthday. She was hooked, making sure her father, Mike Shelly, signed her up for another flight before they left that day.
Then came flying lessons at 13, along with a dream to accomplish solo flights and a glider pilot’s license all by 16. She made her first solo on a glider — an aircraft without an engine — on her 14th birthday.
Working with a teen pilot has its advantages, said Ava’s helicopter instructor Christian Clark, with Treasure Coast Helicopters.
“She didn’t have any bad habits,” said Clark, who has been working with Ava for about a year. “She had flown all her approaches really well, she held her hover extremely well, she had done all her emergency procedures and simulations. When I hopped out, she was ready to go,” Clark said about her helicopter solo.
In fact, he aid, he was more nervous that she was.
“My heart was leaping through my chest,” he said. “She did phenomenal. She was laser-focused. She was calm, she was relaxed.”
As a helicopter mom in the literal sense, Alexandria Shelly admits to being a little jittery watching her oldest child flying through the air by herself.
“Every time she’s in the air, I feel like my heart stops,” she said. “As much as we’re fearful for everything that they do, I just want them to enjoy life to the fullest. I never want to get in the way of their dream.”
Ava wants to attend the U.S. Naval Academy after high school and become a naval aviator. When she’s not up in the clouds, Ava is a varsity cheerleader at Tradition Preparatory High School, and is part of the Naval Sea Cadet program. She also scuba dives and does competitive clay shooting.