Jennifer Moonsong/ WCLU News Director
Barren County woman Mary Schalk is only 19 years old, but she is wise beyond her years and has turned her teenage experience from ordinary to extraordinary by picking aviation as a career part.
“I have this saying I’ve always said. My saying is ‘the sky is never the limit’. What I mean by that, when people are young they are told the sky is the limit. I think its not, and in the aviation industry there are so many paths to take to the sky. You can teach, you can fly big planes, you could be an air traffic controller or an airport manager, or an airplane mechanic. Technically an astronaut is in the aviation industry. There is so much more, the sky and beyond,” Schalk said.
Aviation is a field of interest that still doesn’t have many women participating. In fact, females make up only 6% of the population entering the field today, but Mary knew from an early age that flying would play a role in her life.
“Dad started flying when I was in 1st Grade, he got his license in May that year. I have been flying with him ever since,” she said. “Dad” is Barren County’s Agricultural Extension Agent, Chris Schalk, whose interest in aviation is second only to agriculture, and he always involved Mary in his interests.
“He started letting me take the controls around the age of six, and I would go to aviation camps in Bowling Green. I am very lucky I had the resources to do so,” she said.
Through Mary’s formative years she went back and forth deciding whether or not aviation was a career path. She also had an interest in turf management, since she was an athlete who loved agriculture, but at the age of fourteen settled once and for all on aviation as a career path.
Part of the appeal that won her over was seeing new places, and the challenges of aviation, including the challenges of been a woman in aviation.
“Every part of the United States and beyond is different. Flying over the Smoky Mountains and flying over to Destin is two completely different things. Going over North Carolina you have to fly at 9-10,000 ft going over the tops of Mountains. Seeing the mountains above the haze is a thing you will never forget. Flying over Illinois, or Iowa it is very flat. Only windmills breaking up the horizon. It is a a sea of blue,” Schalk said.
From a social standpoint Schalk is very much aware that she and a few female aviation friends she’s found along the way are rare.
“It is definitely a male dominated industry. When I go to small airports all over the United States, the women’s bathroom is always so clean, because it is a sea of men there, I sometimes don’t see another woman,” she said.
Between the ages of 14 and 16 she trained thoroughly and often, especially in the 8 month long lead up to her sixteenth birthday. “I saw the goal and knew I really wanted it,” she said.
At the age of 16, she took her first solo flight.
Schalk says it was a tremendous amount of handwork reaching her goal, logging many hours of training, and studying, and bookwork.
“For every hour in the air you need to study for 3 hours,” she said. Since she was an active high school student at the time, it is not as if she could focus on aviation; She also had her high school studies and sports.
She says that learning fly encompasses so man aspects, from meteorology and medical training to mechanics.
“Basically you learn what could happen to you in the cockpit. Including hypoxia, hyperventilation, how the plane works, how to know the weather and make good judgement calls and comprehend the possible outcomes of good and bad decisions,” Schalk said.
She added that the mechanical part is a little more challenging, but entirely necessary, as you have to know how everything works and go down a checklist to be certain everything is functional.
“You checklist yourself before you get to the plane. You do a mental and physical health checklist. Then you check the plane, the instruments,” she said.
The next milestone obtained by Shcalk was last October, when she got her instrument. That means she can navigate in the clouds using just the plane’s instruments for judgement.
Schalk is now studying to obtain her commercial license and hopes to bring the process full circle this fall.
A decade from now, Schalk will only be 29 years old and has a clear idea of her future.
“Ten years from now I will be a commercial jet pilot flying private charter jets, whether it is for an individual or a company,” she said.
She has some words of advice for any young lady who wants to fly the friendly skies:
“Definitely being a woman is a challenge, but you can live up to the expectations. Second, know you will devote a lot of time. You have to give all of your time to it. No cutting corners. You’ve got your life in your hands and you’ve got other peoples lives in your hands, too.”
