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A 31-year-old pilot who would be the first Chinese woman to fly around the world points to two classic flying books as having helped shape her dream to be an aviator.
Chen Jingxian, who flies a single-engine Beech Bonanza A26, identifies the Antoine de Saint-Exupery-authored books “Wind, Sand and Star” and “Night Flight” as the books she read in Beijing which influenced her flying ambition. Saint-Exupery is a legendary French pilot who also authored “The Little Prince” fairy tale.
With Chen, who arrived in Paris from Cleveland, Ohio, were her crew and a stuff toy cat named Ebony. Before leaving Cleveland, she had stops in New York, Boston, Canada, Greenland and Iceland.
From Paris, she will stop in Spain, Italy, Greece and Egypt, and traverse Saudi Arabia to Dubai. Her last stops are in India and Thailand before she lands in China. However, Chen is still applying for permission to land in China. After China, she would stop in Japan and Russia and finally re-enter the U.S. through Alaska.
Chen shared, “His experience made me want to know how to fly, and what is the feeling of flying around the world,” referring to the French author.
She went to Beijing at 18 to study, left the capital city in 2011 for New York to pursue a Masters degree in law when she also learned how to fly. After she had accumulated 300m flying hours, Chen applied with rental companies to lease an aircraft, was rejected 20 times until Air Z Charter and T&G Flying Club, run by Richard Rohl, agreed.
Rohl is now part of Chen’s trip, which includes Rohl’s father Larry who founded the aviation school, and Amanda Lincoln, a student pilot. The older Rohl is in charge of checking the jet’s fuel and navigation calculations for the Beech Bonanza A26 that Chen would fly. She estimated it would take her between 45 and 60 days to circumnavigate the world, reported The Star.
Besides Chen, China has female fighter pilots who fly fighter bombs.
