Kamora Freeland has become one of the youngest pilots in the country. The 17-year-old obtained her private pilot license On Tuesday.
“Today I’m taking my check ride, so that’s the test to get my private pilot’s license,” she told ABC 7 NY on Monday.
Freeland flew for around an hour with a designated pilot examiner as part of the test. Her family was in attendance to support her.
“I live in Atlanta, and I came to see it,” Freeland’s sister Mariama Toe-Freeland said. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“To see her doing this, it’s just amazing,” her cousin Aaron Rice added. “To be so young and mature at that age to even want to do it, is just amazing.”
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The 17-year-old’s grandfather said he was excited to be present for the exam.
“I couldn’t even hardly walk but I knew I had to be here,” Richard Greene said.
Her mother said she was “grateful” to be able to see her daughter take the test. Freeland took her on a flight to Martha’s Vineyard last summer.
“She flew me, and I enjoyed it, and she really did it, and I couldn’t believe that she was the pilot of the plane that I was sitting in the back of,” Freeland’s mother said.
The pilot had passed solo and cross-country flight exams prior to this week’s test. She has been learning how to fly since she was 15.
“She’s focused and she’s still just a kid,” her instructor told the news outlet.
Freeland said flying is her passion. She will be enrolling at Spelman College next fall and hopes to eventually obtain her commercial pilot license.
“It’s definitely amazing,” Freeland said about officially becoming a pilot. “I’m a part of the change that’s definitely needed and I want other little Black girls to do the same.”
