ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
The legendary flight school that trained the first African American pilots during World War II is taking off with a new generation after 80 years.
VONTASIA SMITH: We haven't had any flying activity since the airmen. So I was like, why not be a part of something new here at Tuskegee?
LIMBONG: Vontasia Smith is a third-year student at Tuskegee University in Alabama.
SMITH: I have classes. I'm in clubs. I'm flying, and then I also have to do my internship. So it's like a lot on my plate, but it's manageable.
LIMBONG: School life keeps her grounded, but outside of class, she's in rarefied air.
SMITH: Just being in the plane for that first time is just something new and amazing. Like, a discovery flight is when I knew that this was for me.
LIMBONG: Smith is in the first cohort of Tuskegee University's revamped aeronautical sciences program. The department is giving wings to new commercial licensees.
SMITH: The more that you fly, the more comfortable you get into it, as I've struggled with stalls, and I remember spending two to three hours with my instructor practicing stalls and recovering from it. And it's something that you actually have to be proficient and safe in. Otherwise, if you don't know how to recover from it, you can stall the aircraft, and, you know, that'll be your last time, of course, flying.
LIMBONG: Real-world skills tested to industry standards.
SMITH: I almost got into a spin, and for me, that was scary because my instructor would kind of let it happen and then sit there and see what I would do to recover.
LIMBONG: Takeoffs, piloting in the air and, you know, what goes up must come down.
SMITH: The scariest part for me was landing. If the landing isn't great, you can always just do a go-around, which is us introducing that power back into the aircraft and just going back into the traffic pattern and trying it again. You can always reject a landing. So for me, it was like, if I didn't like the landing, I can always reject it and go around.
LIMBONG: As opposed to takeoffs, which Smith says, once you lift the nose and wheels are up, you just kind of got to commit. Smith, who received her pilot's license this month, says learning to fly is a commitment to the life, so much so that she sometimes forgets to turn off pilot speak when she's out of the cockpit.
SMITH: So it's definitely changed my life as I do apply aviation into, like, regular conversations with people. And I remember being in a car with one of my friends, and I accidentally said to him, the outside air temperature is 76 degrees. And I just felt so much like a nerd in that moment.
LIMBONG: Otherwise, she says her conversations are pretty standard - music, food. It just - it rings a bit different when her college buddies ask her for a ride.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOUR TET SONG, "AS SERIOUS AS YOUR LIFE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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