Youngest Female Pilot to Fly Solo Around Australia at 17: $82K Raised, a World Record & the hidden anxiety with success - Rose Donald

0:00Doone Roisin:Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast, Rose. Thank you so much for having me. I feel like I dressed in the theme of Rose today. Pink everywhere. A pink rose. Oh, people watching myself might recognize this is the one jumper I didn't take away with me. So it's like the one thing that I haven't worn in a while. So I'm taking advantage of my new wardrobe back at home, not just the three outfits I had in my bag the whole time. Oh my God. Wow. Go you. Yeah, so it's a luxury having my shower just next to my bedroom, not having to get to the motel or check in first and everything. Love that. I want to start by saying first, a big happy birthday.

0:43Doone Roisin:I know you started your journey as a 17-year-old and you finished the journey as an 18-year-old. Did you get any cool presents? I'm actually wearing one right now. So my mom and my dad got me a little snake. which is kind of cool. So yeah, I wear both silver and gold jewellery so another bit in the silver set which is cute. How cute. Thanks mum and dad. Shout out to them. Yeah, and I also had my birthday in Parafield so that's Adelaide. I was staying with some people from the Australian Women's Parts Association and they threw me an 18th birthday dinner as well so that was lovely. They gave me Debbie Laurie's autobiography which I feel many to read and they gave me some little airplane earrings, which was really cute as well.

1:33So that was a fun birthday surprise.

1:35Doone Roisin:How beautiful. Well, for everyone listening, a little bit of context is that you have just broken the Guinness World Record as the youngest female pilot to fly solo around Australia and raising money for charity at the same time, Little Wings. what was your driving reason to do that crazy adventure? I guess there were a lot of reasons so inherently when I first started off it was because I wanted to get my commercial pilot's license and as a part of that you need to build up your pilot and command hours and that's quite expensive with the aircraft hire and fuel costs and everything. And, um, since I'm doing school as well, um, I didn't know like how plausible that was going to be for me just time-wise.

2:25And, um, additionally, because we couldn't really afford it, um, at that time. So I went about seeing if, um, there was, if there was something I could like sort of do off my own merit to get those hours, um, and not have that imposed on my dad so much because he had paid for the rest of my training. So I thought back to about three years ago now. I was 14 in the car with my dad and we were listening on the radio and we heard that another boy had done a similar trip around Australia at 17. And I thought it was the coolest thing. And I thought, oh, possibly that's something I could do. And then I Googled it and And it would make me the youngest female pilot in a general aviation aircraft.

3:13And I had someone encourage me to apply for the Guinness World Records. So I thought that was something I could latch on to to get a little bit of sponsorship and to that which would really support me in paying those operational costs and help me get those hours for a bit cheaper. And then along the way, I realized that if this was getting traction, I might as well do it for a really great cause. so that's when I went looking for a charity and I got in contact with Little Wings. I gave them a call. Their team was amazing. They scheduled a meeting like pretty much right off the bat with me and like ever since then we've been working together quite well just trying to coordinate like advertising, media events, stuff like that.

3:57They've been really helping with the whole fundraising aspect so I do owe a lot to them as well, like working together on the media and working together the fundraising aspect, we were able to raise like a total of$80 ,000 plus some sponsorship that I had already acquired beforehand. That is so cool. I know. Like it's gone so, so well. A good thing for me is it managed to cover like all of those operational costs that I was really worried about initially. And my dad, of course, is very happy about that. I bet. yeah and like I don't know after this trip I've got this amazing feeling just knowing that I've really made a huge impact to Little Wings's cause and I'm also like in really good stead to get my commercial parts license and start a career in the industry which is really really cool

4:52Doone Roisin:oh such a big congratulations that is just so cool and you know I'm I mean I'm just so inspired I wish I was doing those kind of things when I was 14, 16, 14, 16, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. That's crazy. What was the total operational cost for the flight to actually happen? I haven't tallied everything up yet. I've got like a big stack of receipts on my desk and I'm just looking at them going, yeah, that's a weekend problem. But yeah, like I've got a vague idea of how much it was going to cost. I had a few estimates. So I think my estimate was around about 40 ,000. And that was a bit of a high end sort of calculation there before I left.

5:38And we've raised well over that. So I had some sponsorship initially. And yeah, we had agreement with Little Wings that like we wouldn't be out of pocket like after the whole trip, which is really, really great. And I think everyone's happy with the outcome. So that was, yeah. So flying is expensive, but I'm really proud of what we were able to do there.

5:57Doone Roisin:Yeah. I mean, I just love how, you know, even from an early age, you're able to think outside the box to achieve the things that you want to achieve, you know, even if the pathway isn't the direct pathway you had in mind. So you wanted to get your commercial pilot's license, you know, it's expensive to fly. You're like, okay, great. I don't know if I can afford to pay that amount, but how else could I do this so that I can still get to the goal that I have in my mind. I just love that kind of thinking, getting what you want at all costs. So great. Oh yeah. I mean, it was, the cost was like high, high levels of stress for like many, many months.

6:32Like I tell you, I did not sleep for a period of about three months in the middle of planning all this. So. Oh my goodness. I bet. Yeah. Like I'm, well, obviously I'm really glad we've got such a great outcome. Not only because like now I'm sitting here going, oh my goodness, like look at the impact I've had. Look at how good of a physician I'm in to go and pursue something I love, but also just a big relief because I felt like I was drowning a little bit over the last year or so, just trying to get everything planned together because in reality, I didn't really know what I was doing. So big learning curve.

7:07Oh yeah.

7:08Doone Roisin:Most people or, you know, a lot of people would have really big dreams, you know, when they're younger and when they're 14 years old. But I think that a lot of people would also just kind of leave it as a dream or leave it as an idea. So I want to kind of see if we can go a little bit further, deep diving into how you actually thought about going from dream to reality and planning the trip. Like what was the practical planning in the early phases and like figuring it out with school and with your parents and like putting the framework around this? uh yeah so um I don't know as I mentioned a little bit before like I didn't really know how to go about it when I first started I um started seriously thinking about planning the trip about this time last year um so I'd say a big starting point was actually when I was at the Australian Women's Parts Association Conference in Busselton um so like I just met a whole bunch of amazing women in the industry and I thought it would be an amazing opportunity to ask them all about trips that they'd done flying across Australia because a lot of them had flown their own light aircrafts from states all across Australia into Busselton.

8:26So I thought if there's anyone to ask, it's going to be them just to get advice on how it's something I might be able to do because obviously my dad does fly as well, but when I left for the trip, we had about the same amount of experience. So there were certain things I could ask him, but there were limits to both of our knowledge. So I went outsourcing a little bit, just trying to get advice from different people at that conference, get different routes I'd done in the past. So my route was basically just a patchwork of different routes that I've collected off so many other pilots and everything.

9:04And yeah, like once I had that together, I guess it's when I started going off and looking for a charity. And then once I, because I had that record title in place as a little bit of grounding for looking for sponsors, which was at the time, like the main thing I was trying to do because like, there's no point doing the trip if you can't pay for it. um so I had that title um like sort of behind me it's just like hey I'm gonna do this thing I can put your sticker on the plane something like that um and it's for this title but then to get a charity affiliated as well like um that was a I don't know it's a big kind of uh I don't know just something else behind me to help me get um some more sponsorship and everything so I went looking for a charity uh that process in itself wasn't too smooth so So I actually went through about five or six charities in Melbourne because obviously I'm based in Melbourne.

10:01Little Wings are based in New South Wales, Queensland. I hadn't actually heard of them until I'd Googled them. And I think I saw them early on and I was just like, that would be perfect, but I'm not sure whether it would work interstate. But, you know, here we are. You don't ask, you don't get. Oh, yeah, exactly. Yeah, so I got a little way along with a few Melbourne charities. a lot of them pulled out just for insurance reasons and that's completely fair Little Wings Aviation Adjacent so it was really great working with them because they understood all those logistics they would understand if we had to put something back because of weather and just all those risks associated so that was it was really great that I ended up working with them but yeah like that process of finding charities I'd say it was just a process of like contacting as many people as possible seeing uh and just seeing how far you could get like um with what I had so far because um a lot of those times uh where I got a little way along and then got knocked back a bit like my analogy was oh I put so much effort in um at this point in time I'm in a better position to continue going and like try somewhere else and I would have been at the start when I had no idea what I was doing because by that point I started getting an idea of what worked.

11:23Doone Roisin:Right, right, right. When you were like pitching or kind of coming up with the proposal you would send across. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so I've done about four or five proposals. It's ridiculous. They're all saved on my Canva. Yeah, yeah. So I'd say it was a little bit of luck in the end. Like I was really lucky that I found the people at Little Wings who were able to, who were like willing and able to actualize it. Like they really wanted to get their cause out there because they're based in New South Wales, ACT Queensland, but they are looking to branch out to broader Australia. So like the exposure for them was really important.

12:02And just to be able to branch out to new families who may not have heard of them, like I hadn't heard of them, but families that might need their services and just hadn't heard of them yet.

12:11Doone Roisin:And so because they deliver medical goods to regional Australia when it comes to children with serious illness that usually would need to come into a major city. Is that right? Yeah. So they have a few different services. I'd say the primary thing they're known for is transporting sick kids to and from rural areas to metropolitan hospitals. So they have a fleet of aircraft and they also have a fleet of vans as well, all volunteer drivers and pilots just covering that ongoing transport to and from the hospital. and taking like the sort of strain and effort off the families who would be doing four six hour drives something like that um so there's definitely that component um and yeah as as you mentioned there is another service they offer is called medical wings and um they'll fly specialists and nurses up to rural areas who may like not otherwise have um access to these professionals and the specialists themselves are all volunteers so that sense of community is just absolutely amazing.

13:16And I'm so glad I get to be a part of that and able to support such a good cause.

13:21Doone Roisin:I bet. That is just so freaking cool. What an amazing cause to partner with and the alignment with the aircraft and everything. That's just so cool. How does the process work when it comes to the Guinness World Records? What is the process to officially break a world record or to be like listed you know I remember when I was little they had the book I don't think they do the book anymore maybe but they used to have this big book like oh I had the 2016 one yeah it's like a giant green one on my shelf it's still there yeah I that's how I remember them back in the day and so now I'm kind of like cool what's the process how do you get in that book or whatever the equivalent is in today's world uh yeah so like along the way I had someone encouraged me to apply to the Guinness World Records.

14:09So I just went and made an account through their website, picked a record title that sort of fit and put in my application about what I was planning to do. And in that, I was just, in that, there was like any modification for the title, like why you're doing the record, what sort of equipment you'll be using to track it, et cetera. So I put that in, then it got accepted. And then they sent me back a whole list of guidelines. So So I basically had to make my best interpretation of those guidelines and part of that was submitting a route beforehand, but a lot of it is submitting a whole bunch of evidence about the actual trip.

14:44So along the trip, obviously I had my little transponder, which does record each of my trips and send that to flight radar. So I was going to take those flight radar logs, submit that as evidence. I've been taking photos wherever I go, getting signatures and a little book. So there were a few people a bit confused why I was asking for their autographs at every place that went. I was just like, it's evidence. That's where I'm sorry.

15:11Doone Roisin:But also so cool to have the record and to have it documented. Well, actually, yeah, like I felt I was it was a little bit embarrassing running around with my little blue notebook. But like, I guess it's a cool souvenir now. Yeah, absolutely. I want to talk about the actual journey itself to understand kind of what it was like when you were doing all the different legs of the journey. So specifically when you were, you know, up in the clouds, literally, what were you actually thinking about? Like what was on your mind every day? Ironically, clouds took off a lot of my headspace. Okay. Tell me more.

15:48Yeah, I'm a visual pilot and that basically means I'm not allowed to fly through clouds. So whenever there were clouds around me, like a lot of brain power had to be spent on, okay, that cloud's over there. Don't fly into it. Go this way slightly. Make sure you don't gain any height because there's clouds above you. So that was like a big bit of my headspace there. Other than that, there's other little elements of flight planning. Like I'd be looking at the weather right hours when I was flying because occasionally I'd be flying near where rain was coming in. and I was just checking my progress versus like a sort of wall of showers coming in towards me.

16:26Another thing I'd be looking at is airspace and listening on the radios for traffic. There is that added component of brain power just because it was all unfamiliar to me. Like locations I was flying in were different to what I was used to. And with that comes different weather systems. So that weather in itself was also something I had to get used to. and I did see like vastly different weather all across the country and I've come back to Melbourne and like I guess I'd never looked at weather properly before I'd gone on this trip because when I did my flight training generally you just pick a good day to fly but throughout this trip I was flying even in like sort of marginal conditions so I think that took up a lot of space as well.

17:11There's certainly a lot to think about. Did anything go wrong? um I can't yeah I can't really think so much um I'd say a lot of the times where I started freaking out is um when I was obviously going into those situations I was unfamiliar with um my confidence definitely developed over time so um with those sort of weather conditions um with that uh even just with dealing with unfamiliar scenarios as well I felt like I was more confident uh like towards the end like um at the start like I felt like I was calling up um like the tower people who are local to the area um everything just trying to make sure everything was right but towards the end I kind of had an idea of if I wasn't sure about something how I would phrase my request and um like what uh and if something uh unexpected did come up how I

18:04Doone Roisin:would mitigate so was it scary like or would even did you ever feel scared uh I mean yeah um I I feel like a lot of people have told me I have quite a calm demeanor and that's because when I'm not calm the cameras don't come on so I had little GoPros in my plane and um when it was getting a little bit too stressful it's just like there is no way I'm turning those on like we'll just skip out on the video look today. Yeah. So occasionally when I got a bit nervous, what I would tend to do is I'd call my dad and like just kind of tell him about everything that's going on. It's just like, oh my God, this is, well, I mean, I feel like I'd call my dad when I wanted someone to complain to.

18:47I did have other people to call for advice. So I had other parts that I would call and I was just like, hey, so you're looking at this weather. Yeah. Like, is this okay? And they'd be like, yeah, yeah, that's fine. I'd call my dad as a last resort being like, oh my God, I'm so scared. I don't know who to talk to about it.

19:01Doone Roisin:Oh my gosh. So, so what's an example and what would he do in return to kind of like help calm you down and get you out of the situation? Oh, he'd tell me I was being stupid. He'd be like, just go faster. It's just like, I'm already going pretty fast. No, you'll be fine. And then, and then like pretty much every single time it was, it was fine. I I guess I was overreacting. But, yeah, going up to Horn Island, there was a little bit of bad weather. Like I came up from Weeper, then I tracked up to Horn Island. That's kind of on the west side of the Cape. And obviously notorious for thunderstorms and Horn Island has this weird weather because it's like kind of between the top of Australia and Papua New Guinea.

19:50Like it gets thunderstorms from the north in the morning and then it gets obviously those more familiar building thunderstorms in the afternoon from the south. So there's about a two-hour window in the middle of the day where it's flyable. So, of course, I was trying to make that window, but it did mean that there was a little bit of marginal weather like south of there, like between where I was coming up from. So I was flying through there. I was a little bit uncertain about the visibility. And there was a bit of low cloud, a bit of showers, and obviously I'm from Melbourne. This is just typical wet season flying up there.

20:21but I was just like oh this doesn't look so good and then I get on the ground and everyone there was just like yeah we fly through that all the time 5k's visa is actually less than you think

20:30Doone Roisin:it is and I'm just like okay you're like okay good to know thank you good to know so I'm glad as stressed out as I was at the time I'm glad I've had that experience now because I feel like any other similar situation I did get myself into didn't feel so bad totally you learn in the tricky moments. I'm better pilot because of it. Yeah. So something that I'm always interested to know about, because I kind of think about this for myself is what other people's self-talk and like inner dialogue is. And I'm curious to know like what your inner voice or inner dialogue was like before you went away and then your inner dialogue when you kind of finished the trip and when you got back?

21:16Yeah, I feel like I'm a lot less stressed out about stuff now that I'm back because obviously I'm in the middle of year 11, year 12. I feel like a lot of school is obviously stressful but then you tend to have your teachers like kind of convincing you that this one assignment, this one bit of homework is like a life or death sort of deal. And I remember just being, because I'm trying my best to be a good student, obviously. Because obviously I'm working myself to the bone, trying to plan this trip, trying to keep on top of all my assignments. And I'm doing IB as well. So I've kind of shot myself in the foot doing all the extra work.

22:00What's IB? So that's like an international baccalaureate. It's a different sort of course. I think the standard on the subject is supposed to be slightly higher, but the big thing is you have some extra projects that you have to do for each of your subjects. So I just had a bit more workload to keep on top of. And yeah, obviously, I'm planning this trip as well at the same time. So I was really doing my best to keep on top of everything and probably not sleeping enough and everything. And then on top of that, you have teachers getting really mad at you for forgetting a piece of homework. and it's like I feel like after a while that can start to eat away your self-esteem and like sort of mess with your priorities as well.

22:42It's like I'd be running around really stressed out because of this piece of homework. And I was on that trip and I was just like, what on earth? Perspective. Perspective from up above. Yeah, because it definitely was some perspective. Yeah, like even on the trip I had to learn different bits of perspective because there was a little bit of media around it And sometimes I understand they've got to get like a bulletin out at five. So like sometimes they'd be really stressed asking for footage and I'd be doing my best running around trying to find enough Wi-Fi to upload this footage for them because I'm just trying to help everyone out as much as I can.

23:18And towards the end, I realized that you've just got to accept sometimes that there's some things that aren't plausible to do. and in that and in such a high stakes sort of situation like I need to make sure that I'm actually looking after myself doing my flight plans properly and thoroughly before I get up and go so the sort of thing that would have kind of flown at school like trying to like satisfy everyone's priorities with while detrimenting myself like it was just not justified at all in that sort of environment. So I feel like I had planned to do a lot more homework before I left. I did do a little bit here and there, but I didn't do it to the extent that I would do it at home.

24:02So I wasn't staying up late or anything. And I was really just taking that time for myself. So I feel like now I'm a little bit more strong willed or I hope to be. I haven't been back at school yet. I'll be going back on Monday. I've just been catching up on some stuff at home. so I've done pretty much all the content which is great um but yeah like I want to be a bit more strong-willed in the fact um that I need to support my own needs and um I shouldn't have to adhere to anyone else's standards of me if it's just not something realistic that I can do I know I have no ill intent towards them and I do want to please everyone but at a certain point I need to accept that some stuff just isn't possible absolutely I feel like it's a great lesson to

24:42Doone Roisin:to learn and to have that perspective on life moving forward and you know prioritizing yourself not letting yourself get to burn out you know focusing on what actually matters and what matters to you and is aligned to you that's like lessons that I feel like I learned later in life I mean I'd wish I learned them earlier it's a little bit more sleep recently would have been nice but you know yes what was your favorite thing that you loved about the trip or what was the thing that was you know just the highlight for you if you had to pick one I would say like meeting a whole bunch of new people um and within that like just kind of seeing the general aviation community like it was um like a lot of them um well they're all living in what can be quite like remote places all together with people from their company, other people who fly, and just how much like they all hang out together or go on catch-ups.

25:43Like a lot of them all have group chats and just text my group chat, hey, I'm going camping, who's coming? And then like they'll all just kind of go. So just that sort of community aspect and like sharing similar aspirations or working towards the same sort of goal in the same environment, I just thought that was honestly really special. I mean, maybe I'm biased because I feel like I don't have so much of an aviation community surrounding me at home, which is a bit weird to say. I did have the Australian Women's Parts Association I joined about a year ago, and I had my dad as well. But up until that point, really, I'd only done my flight training by myself.