Congratulations to EAA Chapter 976 Ray Aviation Scholarship recipient Tabitha Yeomans, EAA 1204058, who passed her private pilot checkride on January 12!
Tabitha said that if it weren’t for the Ray Aviation Scholarship, it would have been very difficult to continue her lessons.
“It helped pay for a lot of my lessons right toward the
end, because we had already paid for my school but we ran out of money, and so
it really just helped me finish it out, where I otherwise probably could not
have,” Tabitha said.
Tabitha never saw herself pursing a future in aviation until she got a little push from up above. Tabitha took her first ride with EAA Young Eagles and soon after fell in love with flight.
“I got started in aviation when I was 12, because I
started praying and asking God what I should do with my life, and the word
pilot just popped into my head,” Tabitha said. “It was weird because previously
I had zero interest in it, but the more I looked into it, the more I wanted to
do it, so last year I had the opportunity to get started in it.”
“I love being in the air, and I love looking out and
seeing the sky, and once I saw that, there was nothing else that I could see
myself doing; I just wanted to be up there,” Tabitha said.
Tabitha completed her checkride in a Cessna Skyhawk at
Athens Ben Epps Airport in Georgia.
“I did all my training at a nontowered airport, but my
checkride was at a towered airport,” Tabitha said. “It was scary and I was
nervous; there was a lot that I made little mistakes on, but nothing big, so I
was mostly just nervous. When I was first told that I passed, I was kind of
happy, but also kind of chill, and then we got out of the plane and it hit me
and I almost cried.”
Tabitha is currently looking into starting IFR training
with her local EAA chapter. Her dream is to one day became an airline pilot.
“Being a private pilot means a lot, it means that I did
all this work and it finally paid off. It means that I’m a step closer to doing
what I want to do forever,” Tabitha said. “It also means that I can take my
friends flying and show them how much I love it; even if they can’t get into
it, they can still enjoy flying with me.”
Have you reached a
milestone recently? Passed a checkride, given your first or hundredth Young
Eagles flight, flown your homebuilt for the first time? Tell us about it at EAA.org/submissions.