The Sling Squawk – June 2026
7 Jun 2026
“When Linda Sollars, WAI 372, was in high school in the 1980s, she told the career counselor that she wanted to be a professional pilot. “The high school counselor told me I couldn’t do that because I was a girl,” Linda remembers, who today is an Airbus A320 captain for a major airline.
The information wasn’t correct, Linda says, because in 1973 Bonnie Tiburzi, WAI 18, became the first woman to fly for a U.S. airline and that same year, the United States Navy allowed women to train as pilots.
Instead of a career in flying, Linda went to college for a career in finance. It was practical, she notes, and when you have a practical career, there are jobs that pay you well enough to survive and do what you want to do on the side. Then one day, fate intervened.”
-Meg Godlewski (Aviation For Women)
After twenty-five days, countless flights, three countries and more adventures than we ever could have planned for, the African flying adventure of Josh Flowers and Chelsea Smith of Aviation101, along with Chris Lammert and Keelyn Costello, has reached its final chapter. But there’s still plenty of Africa left to explore…