All 3 in stages of earning pilot’s licenses

At 14, Elly Ferchoff is too young to fly an airplane solo, but that hasn’t stopped her from starting her training.

“I’ve done different maneuvers,” she said. “And I’ve taken off.”

She, along with her sisters, Bella, 19, and Ava, 17, can also already fly hot air balloons. The older two sisters started taking private pilots lessons in Cottonwood several years ago.

Bella got her license at 17 and Ava flew her first solo flight on March 4, after transferring to Untethered Aviation in Sedona in January.

“Once Bella got her pilot’s license, she would sometimes take me up,” Elly said. “It was so fun.”

Ava said her favorite part of flying was what her instructor called “Homesick Angel syndrome.” It’s the feeling she gets when she gets off the runways, she said. She stays about 20 feet above the ground until the end of the pavement when she finally pulls up as the ground drops beneath her. It feels like being an angel trying to go home.

“Literally every time I do this, I have this grin on my face,” she said, “because we’re just going, and it takes a little work to keep it down, but you know it’s going to be amazing when you go.”

Ava flies about three to four times a week, and does the Homesick Angel takeoff nearly every time.

The sisters got into aviation around the COVID-19 pandemic response, on a trip to Alaska when they took a small bush plane charter flight.

“That’s when we were really like, ‘You know what? We should do this. This is so cool,’” Ava said. “It’s not like you’re up in the clouds or whatever, you’re lower. You actually see the terrain. … It’s something that just wakes you up.”

Bella said her first solo was exhilarating.

“It’s just having that newfound freedom, that and just also feeling, the weight and responsibility of having to take care of everything,” she said. “You got to do it all yourself.”

Ballooning

The three went to a hot air balloon training camp in Utah a few years ago.

“There’s a school up there called Balloon the Rockies,” Bella said, “We spent basically a week getting all of our hours in.”

“It’s really nice there, because they’re kind of in this pool,” she said. “There’s really not a lot of winds. Then [there’s] convection that starts happening, so you can be up there for three hours … normally, you’re up for one hour.”

The Ferchoffs own their own hot air balloon and fly it at least once a week. Driving on State Route 89A in the mornings, you might recognize theirs with its rainbow envelope.

“The prettiest one,” Elly said.

Their first-ever time flying came earlier, when they took an Experimental Aviation Association Young Eagles Flight in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

“Truthfully, I didn’t even know there were planes that small, because I’m used to just airliners,” Ava said.

The next local Young Eagles flight takes place in Cottonwood on Saturday, April 18. Visit chapters.eaa.org/eaa952/youngeagles to learn more.

The sisters do “everything” together, Ava said. Whether that’s flying, playing music or even scuba diving.

“When I was 7, I asked for my birthday for a violin,” Bella said. “Our grandparents bought me one, and they didn’t look at sizes. They got a few sizes too big. So by the time I actually played that one, it was several years down the road.”

Now, all three play with Orchestra Northern Arizona and together as a trio, performing at least twice a year.

Women in Aviation

Michelle Smith, the owner of Untethered Aviation, said she used to be into music even more than the Ferchoffs.

“I went to school for oboe performance,” she said. She studied for a graduate degree in the same field, started teaching and eventually ran a school in Boston.

“Then I just got kind of burned out,” she said. “I started taking flying lessons during COVID, because I had a little bit more time … and was flying like every weekend and I just decided that this was kind of what I wanted next. I was like, ‘I know education. I know how to manage school stuff, and let’s get this out.’”

Aviation, she said, is still a male-dominated field, and she was proud the Ferchoffs were all so invested.

“Right now in professional aviation, it is only 7% women,” said Mike Wolford, the Ferchoffs’ instructor. “Seven percent. It’s just like it used to be with lawyers 40 years ago, doctors, 30: No women allowed. It’s an old-boy system. It is so wrong.”

Ava said getting into aviation and training to get a private pilot’s license is one of the best decisions she’s made.

“A lot of people put the restriction on themselves, like, ‘I can’t do this because I’m a girl,’ or ‘I can’t do this because I’m just a kid,’” she said. “What am I? I’m just a kid. I’m just a girl. That’s not a limitation. I mean, take out the ‘just,’ and yes, I am a girl, I am a kid and I’m doing this because I want to.”

While none of them intend to go into aviation as a career yet — Bella wants to be a doctor of osteopathic medicine, Ava wants to be a medical malpractice attorney and Elly doesn’t know yet — they all intend to keep flying for themselves.