21-year-old Aysha Aziz made headlines when she became India’s youngest student pilot at the age of 16. Now she has earned her wings to fly commercial passenger planes.
“Countless exams, sleepless nights, innumerable hurdles and whatnot! But It all seems of so much worth now. What once was just a dream is a reality now,” she wrote on her Facebook after getting her commercial pilot license last week.
Like the skies she flies in, her ambition has no limits.
She is now eying to be the youngest woman in India to break the sound barrier flying a Russian fighter jet.
Ayesha is planning to fly the MIG-29 in Russia’s Sokol airbase.
“I want to reach the edge of the space for which we are talking to the Russian agency to fly the MIG-29,” she told NDTV.
The young woman who has her roots in the restive Kashmir region says she became fond of flying during her trips to Kashmir with her mother.
“While I would enjoy take-off and landing of the plane, my brother would be scared and always sleep during the flight,” she said.
Ayesha says she had to face derision of a few naysayers who scoffed at her for not wearing a hijab. But she remained unfazed.
Ayesha Aziz Source: Facebook
"If the Prophet's wife Hazrat Ayesha could ride a camel in a battle, why can't I fly an aircraft? We have to change our attitude and do justice to girls," she told The Times of India.
“Let nobody’s opinion put you down,” says Ayesha.
She graduated from the Bombay Flying School last year and has flown a single engine aircraft for 200 hours as part of her training to be a commercial pilot after enrolling as a student pilot in 2011.
She has also attended a two-month advanced space training course at NASA and was one of the three Indians chosen for the course.
Ayesha Aziz in 2011. Source: Facebook
She draws inspiration from American astronaut Sunita Williams and Peggy Wilson. 
Ayesha credits her family for her success.
Ayesha Aziz at NASA. Source: Facebook
“When I told my father I wanted to be a pilot, he pushed me into it immediately after completing my Class X,” she told The New Indian Express.
In her batch of 40, there were only four women training to be commercial pilots.
