Being A Woman In Aviation Proves That The Sky Is NO Limit!

I'll admit that this is a feature story that I've been looking forward to... years ago, I was privileged to give Amy Laboda her first assignments as an aviation writer and have been pleased to see what she has made of the opportunities.

Determined to work past all obstacles, Amy's has had a career worth noting. Flying is in the Laboda family, and Amy took up the sport at 15 years of age. She soloed at 16 and earned her private pilot certificate two days after her 17th birthday. She continued flying while earning a Liberal Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York; by the time she graduated she was an instrument-rated commercial pilot and before the year was out she had earned her instructor's rating.

A short career in the United States Peace Corps as a health educator is all that has interrupted her aviation career since then. Amy has taught students how to fly in California, Texas, New York and Florida. She's towed gliders, flown ultralights, wrestled with aerobatics and even dabbled in skydiving. She holds an Airline Transport Pilot rating, multiengine and single-engine flight instructor ratings, as well as glider and gyroplane ratings. She's an aircraft owner (an experimental and a factory built machine), too.

She joined the staff of Flying Magazine in 1988 as an editor, where she contributed to the development and expansion of the magazine's training department. In 1991 she left Flying and created her own company, Marketing Arts. Through Marketing Arts Amy had done free-lance editorial writing for several different venues, including Flight Training, Dive Training, Reader's Digest, and many others. She also does marketing consulting in aviation publishing, Healthcare, education, computer software and flight training. She's edited several textbooks, including Flying Ultralights, Principles of Helicopter Flight, and The Pilot's Manual series of textbooks, and written a Meteorology online course as an Adjunct Professor for Utah Valley State University's online University program.

In 2001 Amy became the Editor in Chief of Aviation For Women magazine, the official publication of Women in Aviation, International, an nonprofit organization dedicated to helping women find career opportunities in aviation and aerospace. Amy was a founding board member of Women in Aviation, International. She is also a member of the Aircraft Owners' and Pilots' Association and the Experimental Aircraft Association.

Amy Laboda is an FAA FAAST Team representative on the national level, and speaks regularly at large aviation events, including the Experimental Aircraft Association's annual AirVenture Oshkosh Fly-In.

Aero-TV Checks In With WAI's Amy Laboda (Part 1)

FMI: www.wai.org, www.aero-tv.net, www.youtube.com/aerotvnetwork, http://twitter.com/AeroNews