Sunraysia’s Jessica Scott has already accomplished a lot for someone her age. She has already obtained her solo flight status and has plans to follow in the footsteps of her grandparents by joining the defence force. Danielle Meddemmen chats to Jess about her dreams and aspirations. Picture: Ben Gross and supplied
JESSICA Scott is like any other 17-year-old girl, except she is legally qualified to fly a plane by herself and is in the process of applying to join the defence force.
Jess is looking to continue her family legacy, following in the footsteps of three of her great grandparents who served with the Royal Australian Air force (RAAF).
Joining the Mildura cadets when she was just 15 years old, she recently attained her solo flight status and aspires to become a fighter pilot.
On her mother’s side, her great-grandmother Gwen Taylor had been an aircraft woman, and her great-grandfather Lawrence Taylor had been a leading aircraftman.
The pair married while in the Force, in Mount Gambier in 1945.
On her father’s side, her great-grandfather was an Air Gunner in the Catalinas, and later went on to be a pilot.
Jess’s goal is to follow in their footsteps.
“We used to hear stories from my great grandmother because she had this big picture book and would tell us all about it,” she says.
“That might have been where it came from as well.
“My grandparents are really proud of me and they are really excited that I might be going into where their parents had been.”
Quickly moving up the ranks to become a corporal within her group, Jess has made a home for herself in the Mildura cadets.
“So my role is a bit more advanced, I have a bit more responsibility now than the other cadets so I help run things,” she says.
“I teach classes like aviation and I teach a bit of drill too.
“I am going on another promotion course at the end of this year to become a sergeant so that will be a lot more responsibility.”
Jess received her solo flight status in an instructed two-week course in Adelaide recently, after successfully controlling a plane through a circuit unassisted.
“On the last day of my course I went solo and did one circuit, it didn’t take me very long maybe about 10 minutes, but it was really good,” she says.
“It was really good – no instructor by your side I was thinking ‘is this actually happening?
“I wasn’t really scared, I had been flying with an instructor for almost two weeks and I knew how to do everything so it wasn’t really that scary.”
Coming into the end of her Year 11 school year, Jess is now applying for a Bachelor of Science with the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) in Canberra.
It is a course she can use to transition into becoming a pilot.
Balancing her senior school years, cadets and ADFA application seems all too overwhelming for a 17-year-old, but Jess says she wouldn’t want it any other way.
“I’ll be sad to see it go, I’ve had a lot of memories here and I’ve made a lot of friends in Adelaide and Melbourne that I have met at cadet activities,” she says.
“I have moments where I think ‘no I can’t do this’ but there are always moments after that reassure me that this is what I want to do.
“I have a friend who is in the Air Force and when he comes home and I hear his stories, that reassures me.”
