The Sky’s the Limit for Brook Wolcott

Written by Melissa Karen Sances
Photos by Nikki Gardner

Published in Northampton Living (August 2024)

Brook Wolcott was in the eighth grade when she decided to take to the skies. There were no pilots in her family. There were no ready role models. She would forge her own flight path.

“I want to let others know that this is attainable, because I didn’t think I’d be able to do it,” says the now 17-year-old licensed private pilot. “Because it was such a crazy – it’s just such a wild thing to do, to be a pilot. You don’t see a lot of eighth graders who want to fly airplanes.”

Her first stop was Northampton Airport’s summer glider program, where she was towed into the air to coast among the clouds. Next came Western Mass Wright Flight, where she was introduced to aviation at Barnes Airport in Westfield. Soon she was applying for Northampton Airport’s Mary Shea Wright Flight Memorial Scholarship, created in honor of the legendary female flight instructor to help young women obtain their private pilot’s license. She was the airport’s fourth scholarship recipient.

“I could be by myself in an airplane before I could be by myself in a car,” says Wolcott, who starts her senior year at Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School next month.

“Soloing” in an airplane is no small feat, says her flight instructor Vinnie Melling. “It’s a rite of passage in the flying community.” To help train to go solo, Wolcott flew her family — supervised — to New York City.

“We left from Northampton and went up the Hudson River Corridor,” she remembers. “Then we flew around the Statue of Liberty.” The 305-foot lady looked small from skyscraper-height.

“I think they thought it was really cool,” she says of her mom, dad and sister. “They kind of talk about it a lot.”

Her parents also talk about their recent Mother’s and Father’s Day presents – totally solo flights with their adolescent pilot, who officially obtained her private pilot’s license in January.

“When people find out she flies, they automatically ask if we fly,” says her mom. “But this was something she did for herself. We’re just along for the ride.” Her dad notes proudly that her younger sister Kate is already taking steps to follow in her footsteps.

Besides spending time flying and preparing for her last year of high school, Wolcott is the office manager at Northampton Airport and teaches classes to middle schoolers at Wright Flight.

“It’s kind of remarkable that Brook started out as a Wright Flight student and now she’s a teacher after a couple years,” says Melling, who has seen firsthand how easily the students relate to her.

“They have people coming in to teach and they’re like 30, 40, 50 and they have their pilot’s license,” explains Wolcott. “It might feel unrealistic for the students [to follow suit]. But when someone like me comes in, and I’m like 3, 4 years older than them, it might open up their eyes that maybe this is something they want to do – and they can start where they are now.”

In addition to teaching, Wolcott is part of the Ninety-Nines International Organization of Women Pilots, founded in 1929 by 99 female pilots, including Amelia Earhart. Wolcott is proud to join them in their mission to promote the advancement of aviation. Less than 10 percent of pilots are women, according to the Women in Aviation Advisory Board.

“I feel like flying helped me to mature a lot more and maybe helped me to mature quicker,” says Wolcott. “When I was younger, I was doing it more for the fun of it, and as I get older, I gain a greater appreciation of how things work.”

“There’s a movie, ‘Pay it Forward,’” says Melling. “That’s kind of what you’re trying to do.”