Making dreams come true is what Addison is all about, and recently a Florida pilot made hers come true (while breaking records along the way). Julie Wang, a West Palm Beach-based flight instructor and airline transport pilot, recently completed the first solo, around-the-world flight by a Chinese woman in a single-engine airplane. Her flight began and ended at Addison Airport, where she flew west, circumnavigating in 155 hours over 17 days, including a 2,160 stretch of nautical miles that Wang had never completed before.
“When I returned to Addison, I had the feeling of wanting to continue to experience and share the feeling of having enjoyed the flight and accomplishing something, while at the same time knowing that there’s much more to do,” Wang said. “Chinese people say ‘yiyouweijin,’ which means something like ‘there’s more to be done.'”
Before and during her flight, Wang worked closely with the Aircraft Owners and Pilot Association (AOPA) China. AOPA China is presenting her with a 1 million Yuan Renminbi prize (which is about $150,000), for her accomplishment.
“I love aviation and the world is big,” said Wang. “There’s so much more to explore. Flying around the world, I had the experience that the world is small and the world is also amazingly vast. These seemingly opposite views are both one hundred percent true and must be held together simultaneously for a full picture of the world. I hadn’t thought about it until now, but this is a window into rising above the everyday contradictions in our wold. I don’t know if another flight is in store for me, but I will continue to teach my students and share my experiences with them. Aviation is one of my ways to explore life, and I feel there’s so much more to explore.”
Wang is currently the chief flight instructor of ZuluTime Pilot, a Part 141 flight school in Florida. After moving to the U.S. from China in 2010, Wang realized her dream of becoming a pilot by earning her private pilot certificate in 2011. She had logged 1,600 flying hours before departing on her trip. With this flight, Wang becomes the 9th woman in the world to fly solo around the world.
“When people start flying, they are full of enthusiasm for all the right reasons,” explained Wang. “Flying at the relatively low altitudes where piston-engine aircraft are comfortable offers amazing vistas, day after day, and it’s just a joy to be airborne or just at the airport around airplanes. After a while, the reality of flight training kicks in: there are regulations to memorize, calculations to do, instructions forcing you to fly more precisely, to know the airspace better and on and on, so that the training can feel tough and even boring at times. You may also start to feel like you’re not making progress, or even going backwards. It’s a fact that most people who begin flight training don’t finish their private pilot’s certificate.”
She tries to encourage her students to stay motivated throughout their training. One time during Wang’s own training, she started getting bored and doubting her direction. However, at that moment, she had a fantastic instructor. “He could feel what I was going through and one day flying through the clouds, he just turned to me and said, ‘open the window.’ I looked at him perplexed. I opened the little vent window and did as he said. He then said, ‘you’re touching the clouds.’ With his words, all my original inspiration and motivation came flooding back with tears, and I was back to the person I was when I had started flying. You can’t plan for these moments as an instructor, but if you’re doing your job, you pay attention to your students very carefully and try to know what each one struggles with and what you can do to help, and when. I don’t think I can inspire someone to hunger for life, but I can help them untie knots that are challenging them in their training. The key is remembering, but not just in a cold way, actually remembering why you started flying in the first place. This solo, round-the-world flight has done that for me again and really charged my battery.”
Although Wang claims not to be qualified to be a motivational speaker, she is inspiring not only to pilots in her classes, but also to women around the world who have fantastic dreams like she did. Along her journey, before she completed her record-breaking flight, Wang had more than a few doubters. The professional aviation world has been almost exclusively a man’s world, and many people (including some on her support team) doubted her ability to realize her dream. However, she mentioned that most of it was simply unconscious bias, and not the “more pernicious deliberate discrimination that many other women have experienced.” For women, Wang gave this advice: “In the face of doubters who inevitably pop their heads up no matter what you’re seeking to accomplish, when you yourself have no doubts that you can reach your goal, you’ve won. Regardless of what anyone else thinks or says, and even regardless of the outcome, you’ve still won. When your confidence and resolve ripen, step forward boldly, without hesitation, and you will be like an arrow let fly from the bow.”
Maybe your arrow will fly around the world, and maybe it will never leave Addison. As long as you are challenging yourself to accomplish your dreams like Wang, it doesn’t matter.
Sydni Ellis grew up in the great state of Texas, where the iced tea can never be too sweet and everyone does their makeup before going to the grocery store. She has her master’s degree in journalism from the University of North Texas, and she loves talking about her passions: writing, shopping and reading murder mysteries. Follow her on Twitter @sydnimellis to see her latest stories on fashion, entertainment, travel, lifestyle and local events–and to see 500+ pictures of her two blonde babies.