Natalie Novak was born to fly.
A junior at K-State Salina Aerospace and Technology Campus, Novak’s parents are both pilots, and she is one of many students in the university’s professional pilot degree program.
She’s also one of four female student pilots from KSU-Salina competing in the Women’s Air Race Classic next month.
“I’m really excited for the air race because I feel like it is a great way to expand my aviation experience beyond what traditional training can provide,” Novak told The Mercury. “We will be traveling across new terrain and visiting completely new places and airspaces.”
The Women’s Air Race Classic is an annual timed competition where pilots fly from point to point across 10 states. The field of 101 racers will take off from Grand Forks, N.D., on June 20, and cross the finish line June 23 in Homestead, Fla. Of the 44 teams competing, 19 of those hail from 15 different universities.
K-State Salina is sending two teams, each consisting of a pilot and co-pilot. The four competitors are Novak, senior Roxana Linares, senior Venus Thanasouk, and senior Yulissa Hernandez.
“I know that I will be challenged and forced to think outside the box, which will make me a better pilot,” Novak said.
During the four-day race, competitors will fly to and from nine different stops at locations across the country, including a fly-by time check at the Herington Regional Airport in Dickinson County. The teams will be timed on each leg of the flight over more than 2,600 miles, while accounting for airplane endurance and weather.
The team with the fastest combined time wins the competition. The top 10 teams will get a cash prize, with the winning team receiving $6,000 and prizes for each team member. Teams can also win awards in numerous categories, including a collegiate division.
Pilots in the Women’s Air Race Classic range in age from 17 to 90. Hernandez, who is also the student leader of the campus Women’s Air Race Classic organization, said she met a family friend who’s a pilot during her freshman year, and that influenced her to change her career path from medicine to aviation. She now has about 240 flight hours and her private flight certificate, and she’ll soon have her commercial license.
“This is an awesome opportunity that I am very grateful for,” Hernandez said. “The air race will allow me to use the skills I have learned in flight training and develop new ones in completely different environments.”
K-State Salina’s students will fly in Cessna 172s, the standard aircraft for flight training in the professional pilot degree program. Novak has about 250 hours of flight time along with her private and commercial flight certificates. She said she feels it’s important to host a female-only event to create a space and atmosphere for women to come together.
“The aviation community is relatively small, and the percentage of women is even smaller,” Novak said. “This all-female race brings together female aviators and helps us bond over our true passion.”
The history of aviation features many women in addition to famous pilot and Kansas native Amelia Earhart. In 1906, E. Lillian Todd became the first woman to design and build an airplane. Just a couple of years later, in 1909, Baroness Raymonde de La Roche became the first woman to complete a solo flight. Earhart wouldn’t make a name for herself in the aviation scene until 1928, when she was the first female passenger to cross the Atlantic by airplane with pilot Wilmer Stultz. Her first nonstop solo transatlantic flight happened in 1932.
More recently, the number of women taking to the skies has increased. According to aviation education provider Pilot Institute, there were 14,580 female student pilots in the U.S in 2015. That amount has grown, to 42,184 as of last year. In total, there are currently more than 72,000 female pilots, both student and professional, in the U.S.
K-State Salina interim department head of aviation Terri Gaeddert said in a statement that competing in events like the Women’s Air Race Classic benefits students’ future career prospects.
“Events like the air race create representation for female pilots from different backgrounds,” Hernandez said.
Novak said the Women’s Air Race Classic shows other young women who want to fly that “they are not alone.”
“There are already women who have done it, and that can help them reach their dreams,” Novak said.
