"One day, a girl won't have to wonder if she belongs in the cockpit; she'll just know she does."
On Adele Dobler | HeliOps Magazine


"One day, a girl won't have to wonder if she belongs in the cockpit; she'll just know she does."

"Dad took me to several airshows when I was a kid, and I fell in love with aviation. As we all know, aviation is an expensive endeavor, so that dream got put on the back burner while I pursued firefighting. After being a part of that world for a few years, I was finally in a position to make the switch to aviation, and it's been all out ever since!"

Tobi actually always wanted to become a farmer, but as no one in his family was into farming, he chose the academic route and went to high school and university. Nearing the end of a Bachelor of Business and Administration, he felt the urge to pursue a career that would be connected to a passion rather than just making a living. "At some point, I asked myself what got my attention, aside from tractors, when I was a child – and that's how helicopters came back into the picture!"

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a helicopter pilot. Justin Pedersen was 11 years old, at a friend's house for an afternoon in the summer. The friend's older brother had embarked on a career as a helicopter pilot, but at that age, it didn't really click what that meant. [...]

Rosita has countless memories of flights together in her dad's Cessna 182, the standard ritual being that he would stack three pillows on the right-hand seat, picking her up to place her on this magnificent throne. It's no wonder she grew up to be one of the most diversely licensed young pilots in the world.

Matt Otto was born with the desire to get into the air. "When I was 13, Rotor Work's Hughes 300C came to our farm in New Zealand to do some topdressing, and my younger brother Tom and I got a ride." Today, Tom and Matt both work in the industry, a direct result of their initial encounter with Hughes 300C.

Leigh Coate's first flight was in southern California at age 15, when her stepdad, a private pilot, took her up for a spin in a Cessna 172. "That feeling, when we were 1000 feet up looking down at all the cars on the freeway stuck in slow-moving traffic, was mind-blowing. It was absolute freedom – up above it all."

All Mylène Marionvalle ever wanted was to be able to help people from the sky. As a child growing up in northern France, she dreamt of joining the Service d’aide médicale urgente (Urgent Medical Aid Service) as a helicopter pilot.

The sun's heat reflects off a mottled grey tarmac, glancing back up onto the Fire Boss AT802F faithfully waiting there for me alongside Riley Payne's red-shirted form.

"As a kid, I would always look to the sky when aircraft passed over, and I loved airshows. When it came time to decide what to do for a career, I knew it needed to be hands-on and dynamic. Initially, I thought about going into corporate aviation flying business jets, but then I took an [...]