Marten Falls woman loves flying

Rowena Moonias is aiming to take flight with Wasaya Airways.
“I’ve always wanted to be a pilot since I was 17,” said the Marten Falls band member.
Moonias just completed the Taking Flight: Northern Aboriginal Aviation Careers program offered by Wasaya and the Sioux Lookout Area Aboriginal Management Board.
“My dad had a plane and he used to always take me flying. I loved it.”
Moonias began flight training four years ago through the Aviation Diploma program at First Nations Technical Institute in southern Ontario before joining the Taking Flight program last summer in Steinbach, Man.
“I did all my commercial (ratings) down there (at FNTI),” Moonias said. “This past July when I moved to Steinbach for Wasaya, I got my multi-engine rating and my instrument rating.”
Although Moonias is now at home flying an airplane, she was nervous about her first solo flight.
“I thought there was no way I would be able to fly that tiny little plane,” Moonias said. “It was so foggy and the sun was coming out. You’re way up high and you’re looking down and it’s so tiny.”
But once she was up and flying, Moonias found the solo flight to be relaxing.
“You didn’t have this instructor in your ear telling you what to do,” Moonias said. “You could do whatever you want; you were just flying around by yourself.”
Flight training usually begins with the instructor taking the trainee up for straight and level flying, then take-offs and finally landings.
“The landings are the hardest,” Moonias said. “Once you know how to do it, then you solo. You just take off and go around and land. After your first solo, they let you fly other planes.”
Moonias is working with Wasaya in Pickle Lake with the goal of starting her pilot career by flying one of Wasaya’s Cessna Caravans at some time in the future.
“I’d like to stay with Wasaya for a long time.”
But she does have bigger dreams.
“Eventually I’d like to fly for WestJet or Air Canada.”