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Writer's pictureClaire Maher

Welcome to My Aviation Career Blog!

Updated: Oct 5


About Me!

Welcome to the very first Flygirl Aircraft Detailing blog! This website is a mix of my business as well as my personal brand. For background, here is a little bit about me:


Girl holding shirt after soloing plane for first time
My first solo at 16

My aviation journey began when I was 14 years old, thanks to a Young Eagles flight at my local airport in Mariposa, California. That experience sparked a passion, and just two weeks later—after some serious begging of my parents—I signed up for flight lessons. Determined to fund my own training, I worked at the airport and a local bakery. I soloed at 16, becoming the youngest person to do so at that airport.


Weather challenges in my mountain hometown led me to move to Florida, where I continued pursuing my aviation dreams. At 19, I earned my pilot’s certificate. Along the way, I founded Flygirl Aircraft Detailing to help fund my training, and I became a founding member of FlyBright Pilot Academy—a flight school that grew from 1 to 6 planes in its first year.


Aviation is something I am seriously passionate about, and so is business. My goal is to grow in these things as much as possible, and be a major contributor to them in the future. Have you ever done something and feel like you have absolutely no frame of reference? That's how I feel about 95% of the Education and Career things I do. So stay tuned, and you can see me figure them out and hopefully learn from my mistakes!


Why Aircraft Detailing?


I knew I wanted to start my own business in aviation. Sounds great right? However, as an 18 year old with no money or business experience, it felt like aviation had too high a barrier of entry for me to succeed in. There was only one thing I could think of that didn't require serious capitol, instead it required hard work... you guessed it! Aircraft Detailing.


Girl standing in front of airplane holding detailing equipment
The first plane I ever detailed

Aircraft Detailing was not anything I knew about whatsoever, so I needed to educate myself first. Luckily, Brett Barry of Shiny Jets has the best training programs out there. He invested in my success by being generous with knowledge and even let me access his course on loan, allowing me to pay for it once I had revenue coming in. I borrowed money from my dad and a mentor to start the company, and from there the learning started. Pictures above was the first plane I ever detailed. It was for a flight school and I charged $1000 for 7 planes - mistake #1.




I've learned many more lessons since then, some I learned easy, and some not as easily. After detailing that first batch of planes I thought I had made a serious mistake taking out loans for this company. Detailing aircraft was harder than I ever imagined. I would end days covered in chemicals and grease, and my body would be more sore than it had ever been. Luckily, it was too late at that point so I had to stick with it! Here we are today after a year of Flygirl Aircraft Detailing, and I've come to love the satisfaction of restoring a dull, dirty aircraft to a shiny, spotless one.

Stay Tuned...

Much more detailing advice, business learning, and life lessons are coming up, and I can't wait to share them with you! If you are interested in keeping up with these adventures, please subscribe!


I promise more updates coming soon!



144 views1 comment

1 comentário


darchan5062
05 de out.

Proud of you! We’d be proud no matter what but we admire all your amazing accomplishments.

Curtir
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