For Saba Shahid, aviation is a family affair.
It was her son’s pride in his mother becoming a pilot that led to her first aviation-related children’s book, “My Mama Is A Pilot.”
But her love of aviation started much earlier, according to Saba.
“My father was actually in aviation school back in the late 1960s,” she says, noting that “when my father’s father passed away, he had to quit his aviation studies to get a job and support the family.”
“Growing up I always heard about aviation and his stories,” she recalls. “So the interest was always there throughout childhood.”
But, as with so many of us, it took her a while to get airborne.
“It was after I went to college and got married and really started traveling where I felt a very big affinity to the sky and to airplanes,” she says.
Living close to an airport, Saba and her family would drive by it every day.
“I would always say to my husband, ‘hey, one of us needs to try this. We need to see if we would like it,’” she says.
It was during the pandemic when her husband took the initiative and bought Saba a Discovery Flight.
She remembers it was a very hot day.
“I was not dressed appropriately and the flight ended with a lot of sweat and me questioning, ‘can I even handle this?’”
But that didn’t stop her from signing up for flight lessons that day.
“The journey started from there and I haven’t stopped,” she says.
Saba, who earned her private pilot certificate in 2020, is now working on her instrument rating. Next is her commercial rating.
She eventually envisions a career as a professional pilot, perhaps as a corporate pilot, once her kids are a bit older. Her oldest son Aayan is now 4, while Ashaaz is just six months old.
For now, she’s content flying her 1975 Beechcraft Sierra that was once owned by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) out of her home base of Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport (KBAF) in Massachusetts.
An author since 2014, Saba had been concentrating on self-help books for people living with neurological conditions.
But the idea for the new children’s book came from her own child.
“Kids have so many amazing questions,” she says. “I introduced my son to general aviation when he was just 18 months old. It almost became a tradition where anytime I was flying, my husband and my son would be on the lookout deck when I was landing. After I landed, I could see his tiny little hand waving at me.”
“Or sometimes my husband would show me a video that he made of me landing, and all I could hear was, ‘oh, that’s mama, mama, mama.’ They would always come down onto the tarmac after I shut the airplane down and he’d sit in the airplane and he’d have a thousand questions. He’d pretend like he was a pilot or he’d open the little window and say, ‘Prop clear.’”
Anyone who has children knows that they have a different — and eye-opening — perspective than adults, she notes.
“The things that we take for granted, they really treasure and really think through. And so I started writing this book back in 2020, to share with others everything that comes with flying,” she recalls.
“A lot of people, including my friends, think you just get in the airplane and go wherever you want,” she says. “I wanted to show them there’s a lot more involved than that.”
Her son, Aayan, was the inspiration for the book, which is why the story is written from the eyes of a young child “who’s watching, learning, asking all these questions, and going through the many steps his mom takes in order to have them go on a flight and have these adventures.”
The goal of the new book is to inspire not just kids, but everyone, to explore aviation, she says.
“I wanted to give a little bit of insight into what it takes to actually pilot an aircraft and get up in the air,” she says.
She also hopes the book will shine light on the fact that just 8% of pilots worldwide are women.
“Women are obviously underrepresented in this field,” she says. “But we are here and we are making advances and breaking that stereotype.”
“I wanted to share with people that, hey, a pilot isn’t just a man. There’s many women pilots out there, and the field is only growing. And not just pilots, there’s women in mechanic shops now, there’s women controllers.”
Saba’s son is rightly proud of his mama, often bragging to others that she’s a pilot.
“Today I went to a local elementary school and read the book to them and did a little airplane craft. And when I picked him up from his school, I told him, ‘hey, mama just went to this school and read your book and did this airplane craft.’ And he was very upset that he was not a part of it.”
Saba plans to follow up this book with a series of additional aviation-related books. She anticipates the next one will be released in about six months.
While the book is aimed at children, Saba hopes those reading it to their kids may take some lessons from it as well.
“I hope that kids and other readers can learn that if they aspire and if they work towards their goals, they will be able to achieve what they’re working towards,” she says.
“I also want readers to see that women are capable of anything,” she continues. “We can be a mom, we can be a business woman, we can be a pilot. And to really celebrate that moms are incredible human beings and, if given the right tools and the time and the support, we’re able to reach milestones that most people think that we can’t.”
While at first glance the book is about flying, Saba says there’s more to it.
“It’s really a story about celebrating your dreams, being courageous, and breaking traditional barriers,” she says. “It’s actually been really amazing to hear the feedback I’ve been getting. There’s been so many adults who have been telling me, ‘wow, I learned so much from this book about aviation that I didn’t even know.’”
“The sky is not the limit,” she continues. “When we work hard, we can really break barriers and instill belief within ourselves that we can achieve our dreams with passion, perseverance, and again, just bring awareness to the significant role that women play in aviation and in other areas to foster this environment of equality and empowerment.”
And while she’s collecting fans of all ages, one of the oldest is her father.
“He tells everyone he knows, ‘my daughter is a pilot,’” she says with a smile. “You can just feel the excitement and just this pure, genuine happiness that he has sharing this adventure and this part of my life with him. And truly, I feel like I’ve gained more of an understanding and a stronger bond with him through this passion of mine.”
The paperback book is available for $13 on Amazon and on the author’s website, FlyingAuthor.com.
