text: Flying a spiritual thing for Laura Benson Jones
  Pilot Laura Benson Jones: A father-daughter talk jump-started her interest in flying.
  Laura Benson Jones has more than 10,000 hours of flying experience but never tires of the sense of excitement when she takes off.
  "Watching a sunset from the sky or flying on top of the clouds is awe inspiring," she says. "I get a magnificent sense of how big our planet is. I see cities coming together, so different from the linear view on the ground. It's sort of like having a three-dimensional experience. Flying gives me a sense of calm and kind of takes me out of myself for a somewhat spiritual experience. I'm also proud when I'm over Kentucky, feeling humble and respectful of the environment."
  A father-daughter talk jump-started her interest in flying. When she was a sophomore in high school, he asked her what she wanted to do with her life. Her answer was to hang out at the mall with her friends. He had another idea and said, "Let's think about this. There are a lot of people who have no path in life. Come up with something really good and we're going to work toward that. If you change your mind, we'll work toward that, but you need to have a goal."
  She had become intrigued with watching shuttle launches on television and told him she might want to consider being an astronaut. He suggested starting with flying lessons and took a second job to pay for them.
  "In the beginning, I wasn't sure if I liked flying. I was a little scared, but immediately began to find what others call "personal power." Flying gave me a lot of confidence. I could correlate the math and geography I was learning in school with flying," says Laura.
  Not content with flying only for pleasure, she became a flight instructor and commercial pilot and owned a flight school. She is certified as an airline transport pilot, the highest ranking. As a commercial pilot, she flew Citation and Challengers, a top-of-the-line private jet that seats 19 in a living-area-like environment. She piloted executives for Hallmark Entertainment, Toyota and Yum brands, many of whom traveled throughout the United States,Mexicoand Canada.
  She says a mere two percent of airline transport pilots are women and that women account for only 5.9 percent of general aviation pilots. She doesn't understand the low percentages but says most of her experiences have been very positive. There were, however, jobs for which she was not hired because a company's passengers preferred male pilots.
  Her personal plane, a Cirrus, is made out of composite material and can reach a speed of 175 miles an hour. "I call it my motorcycle. It's a great airplane for a pretty day. Since it seats only four, if my husband and three kids want to fly with me, they have to draw straws."
  She's teaching her three sons, who range in age from six to 13 years old, to fly. Her eldest son and one of his friends learned navigating lessons last summer when they accompanied her on a trip to Florida. "All the kids think it's normal to get in and fly with Mom," she says.
  "I tell people that half the fun of becoming a pilot is the journey. The lessons of learning to fly will change anyone's life," she says. "We have flight plans and know where we're going. We use checklists. Skills you use to fly are skills we use in real life."