Have a Little Faith and

Lace it up with Aviation...

Friday's Fabulous Flyers:

Faith Drewry and Lacey Smith

 

Talk about inspiring stories! Faith and Lacy were two woman, a private pilot and student pilot, who turned their love of flight into an aviation business. If you think you can't make your dreams come true, don't believe it. Believe that anything is possible, add a glass of wine, and then  dream big and make it happen!

Faith Drewry:

"We both moved to Tallahassee in 2008. Faith was a private pilot looking for a place to rent and a community of aviators to hang out with. Lacey was a student pilot, earning her license so she could more efficiently travel to her horse training clients. We coincidentally ended up with the same flight instructor, who turned out to be the only person in our area who seemed blind to the fact that girls didn’t usually want to fly. That must be how he ended up with both of us! Despite being furloughed from the airlines at the time, his enthusiasm for general aviation was infectious, and he encouraged us each to attend an upcoming EAA meeting.

A chance CFI assignment turns into a trio of life-long best friends

When each of us arrived at the meeting, we were a bit intimidated by the large room full of men, most of them older than us. Faith looked around the room, saw Lacey, and – having never met her before – made a beeline for the empty seat next to her! Faith offered to help Lacey study the private pilot materials, and we hit it off right away. Before long, we were flying together all over the southeast, and Lacey had finished her private pilot’s license.

We both wanted to pursue our instrument ratings, and decided that we should buy a plane together to save on expenses. When our CFI friends found out about our plan, they asked if they could use it for lessons. We laughed it off until one night, after perhaps a little bit too much wine, we thought – why not? If there are this many people who are asking us about it, why not make a flight school? FL Aviation Center was born.

Lacey, meanwhile, had loved flying so much that she decided to add a job at the airport to help pay for her flight training and be around the airport more often. Due to Lacey’s work at the airport, she knew about some office space available for rent. It would require renovation, but could be acquired at a good rate as it had been empty for quite some time. Our next hurdle was to enlist all of our friends into helping with our renovation project! We spent a lot of time outside of our regular jobs learning to grout, paint, redecorate, and more.

We had a ton of people stop by to donate time, materials, decorations, and suggestions. We really didn’t know what we had gotten ourselves into, but all of the people who had craved a sense of community with their fellow aviators threw themselves into what was seen as “the girls’ project.” Of course there were the nay-sayers; we found out that people had even taken bets about how long it would be before we failed. We would still like to know how much money they lost! We are really proud of the aviation community that now exists in Tallahassee, and are passionate about supporting our community in any way that we can. "

 

And then there was... 

the

FL Aviation Center
(850) 778-FLY1

Enjoy the Journey!
XOX Karlene