Cleveland, OH — Cleveland’s Sydney-Marie Flowers, who is only 16, is on track to earn her private pilot’s license this year. Even though she hasn’t even started driving yet, she already has her student pilot certificate.
After excelling at a regional aviation camp, she was invited to participate in a national program hosted by the United States Air Force in Tuskegee, Alabama.
“They only pick 20 students out of the whole entire country,” Flowers told WKYC, “I just felt that it was a genuine accomplishment for me, and also a privilege to tread on the same field the Tuskegee airman stepped on.”
Recently, she made history by taking off on her own for the first time from Tuskegee Field. She said the training was tough and that her last landing was difficult, but that she overcame both.
My daughter has made me so, so proud. Her mother, Marie-Lynn Ogletree, proudly proclaimed, “She created goals and she’s pretty much aced every one.”
Flowers will join a small group of Black women pilots, wherein only 4.4% of airline transport pilots are women and only 2.7% are Black, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.
