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14-year-old pilot sets Guinness World Record at Langley airport
10-03-2018
Mohd Shaikhsorab believes he is now the youngest pilot with the fewest hours logged to fly solo.
An American teenager was in British Columbia Wednesday September 19 with his sights set on becoming the youngest person to ever pilot a 150-nautical-mile flight on their own.
On July 19, Shaikhsorab completed his first independent flight with only 16.4 hours of flying time under his belt.
He became obsessed with flying after enrolling in an aviation program at Cypress College in California last year. He was one of the first students to earn a 5.0 GPA at the school, prompting his parents to send him to Canada to continue his education, he said.
"I really started my aviation stuff when I was 13 actually," Mohd Shaikhsorab, now 14, told CTV News. "Flying is an addiction."
“It’s very fascinating and it’s a very cool thing that you know how to fly an airplane,” Shaikhsorab said.
“And, you know, the skies are the freedom of the world. You can go whip up in an airplane, go flying, so it’s a wonderful experience. And truly every time I go flying it’s very breathtaking to see the views up in the sky.”
Shaikhsorab took off from Abbotsford before flying to Chilliwack, Nanaimo and back—a feat that could put his name in the Guinness Book of World Records.
"It's not like driving where there's a lot of traffic out there," said Mitchell Nosko, the co-owner of Principal Air. "With the airplanes, there's not a lot of traffic so the whole time, there's lots of spaces between the students and everybody else."
The teen pilot's mother, Frazana Shaikhsorab, said she was "very proud and very nervous" about her son's world record attempt.
"I don't want to jeopardize his life, but…he's good, he's confident, so I thought why not let him try?"
The teen lives in California, but came to B.C. for the record attempt because of laws that prohibit him from flying solo in the U.S.
"You can't fly in the U.S. until you're 16 and he's 14, so if you want to do something great, you have to come to Canada," his mother said.
Shaikhsorab is already up for one world record as the youngest person to fly solo with just 16.4 hours of time in the air. That record attempt is currently under review.
The teen pilot landed back in Abbotsford after a tense two hours.
"I never felt so happy to make a radio call when I was coming back," he said. "Forget about air speed, I was looking at the fuel gauge the whole time. It goes down and up and up and down it's just crazy."
Shaikhsorab said his ultimate goal is to one day pilot a commercial jet.
According to Transport Canada, the demand for pilots in Canada is already high, and is projected to grow in the next 10 years as many pilots retire.
To become a pilot, students must first complete classroom work and take a ‘PSTAR’ exam to earn a student pilot permit, explained Saar Kaufmann, a flight instructor at SkyQuest.
Students must then complete a radio certificate, a medical exam and have completed at least 45 hours of flying before taking a Transport Canada written exam and flight test. This will earn them a private pilot licence, which allows for flying during the day in “visual flight conditions.”
More training and experience are required to earn a commercial pilot licence.
“Anyone can do it, but it is not easy,” Kaufmann said. “You need to be fully dedicated for it.”
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