Ellen Massey

Ellen is a commercial pilot with ratings in single-engine land and seaplanes and multi-engine land planes. She was first inspired to become an aviator as a little girl when she saw two Bombardier Super Scooper seaplanes put out a wildfire near her home. She finds fulfillment in serving others through aviation, especially when she was able to use her skills to bring vital supplies to the survivors of the devastating Maui wildfires.

Ellen is the first in her family to become a pilot, and her route to accomplishing her childhood dream has been a circuitous one. She feels lucky to have had a varied, interesting, and, at times, dangerous life prior to flight training, which prepared her well for life as a career pilot. Although she worked as a high school teacher and a magazine writer, she was also a sponsored ocean sailor, circumnavigating the globe on a very small and primitive boat. With just one other person on board, she did all her own repairs on the 50-year-old sloop, stood solo 4-hour watches on all her ocean passages, which meant being in sole command of a tiny boat thousands of miles from the nearest land. She has rounded the Cape of Good Hope in hurricane-force winds and withstood numerous gales on a voyage to the Arctic icecap.

While flight training – and life in general – has not always been an easy road, Ellen continues to find that courage, perseverance, hard work, and believing in oneself leads to attaining your biggest dreams. She is excited for the next chapter in her aviation journey.