LAKELAND, Fla. — Abigail Dowdy is a trailblazer, a rebel, a 16-year-old future pilot excelling in an industry dominated by men.
"We can all do the same things," she said.
Dowdy attends Central Florida Aerospace Academy, an aviation-focused high school in Lakeland.
She is a 4.0 student, a young lady whose engineer father first got her interested in NASA — until she fell in love with planes.
"I want to be in the sky, not in space," Dowdy said.
Her passion, her gifts, her laser focus, and her budding aviation skills are so adept that she was recently featured in a PBS special titled "Women in Aviation."
This spring, Dowdy will intensify her flight training, all leading up to her solo-piloting a plane well before her 18th birthday.
But she doesn't want fortune or glory.
Dowdy plans on being a missionary pilot — delivering water, food and life necessities to people in need.
"My message to young women is always use your passion, use your dreams, use your gifts, and you can go anywhere in life as long as you work for it," she says.
