Teenage Female Pilot Set Flying Record
Recently the 19-year-old teenager Zara set the world record as the youngest woman to fly alone around the world. Zara took the Guinness World Record (吉尼斯世界纪录) from the 30-year-old American flyer Shaesta Waiz since 2017. The youngest male to fly alone is Travis Ludlow, who set that record at the age of 18.
Zara started her trip around the world on August 18, 2021. It covered over 51,000 kilometers, including 52 countries and five continents. The flight was supposed to take three months. But she got stuck either in bad weather or because of visa delays, which made her finish her journey with two more months than she had planned.
Of all things, Zara thought that physical tiredness and loneliness were the toughest part. They were definitely big challenges on such long-distance flights. The teenager said the last part of her trip, from Germany, had been extremely difficult. She had to deal with the endless rain and snow. But she was happy to be accompanied by the local Air Force team before landing. "The people were warm-hearted, everywhere," she recalled.
Zara's plane had been modified carefully for the journey. It normally has two seats, but an extra fuel container then took up one of them. That made Zara more confident when flying on her own.
Zara has long cherished a love for the sky and has been traveling in small planes with her pilot parents since she was six. Zara dreams of being an astronaut. She believes her trip will inspire girls and young women to get into aviation (航空) and encourage them to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics, also known as STEM.
On her website, Zara wrote, "With my flight, I want to show young women that they can be__________ as well because __________________________________."
