Cathy Page is a STOL Drag racer and an aviation junkie!

She received her private pilot license two days before her 25th birthday, then eleven months later became an aircraft owner and has been flying ever since.

When Cathy began taking flying lessons, her goal was to mainly immerse herself in her dad’s hobby that he had taken up a few years earlier as a way to spend more time with him.

Cathy thought pilots came from a different bolt of cloth, a different educational background and a much different, wealthier world than she was in, but she jumped in anyway. Cathy was determined to attempt to get her license before the summer ended and before she ran out of time and money. She had saved up a fixed amount and knew she would learn more efficiently by flying frequently.

Once she got her license later that summer, Cathy began meeting others who flew, and discovered that many of them were just like her. They were average blue-collar workers, who got some exposure to general aviation and found a path to get their private license.

Cathy learned that buying an old airplane cost about the same as buying a new/economy car. So, she made a budget, figured out an affordable monthly payment, took out a loan and bought a 1953 Cessna 170B.

She had no thoughts of becoming a professional pilot at all, because she still assumed those careers were left to people from a different station in life.

Sometimes when a young person sees a successful adult, they think that person was always like that but the truth for most people is that they created what they've become in life by simply putting one foot in front of the other.

The summer Cathy got her license and the following year when she bought that first airplane, Cathy was working construction as a steamfitter apprentice. She couldn't even imagine herself as a pilot, or aircraft owner. However, Cathy did see some of the initial steps to getting her pilots license and one thing led to another.

Over the years she continued to move forward and seek more opportunities that involved flying. After about four years of flying her Cessna on evenings, weekends and vacations, etc. Cathy realized that she might be able to make a career change after all.

Cathy said she would have thought you were crazy if you had told her at 25-years-old, "Cathy you're going to get a pilot license. You're going to buy an airplane. You're going to abandon this hard-earned journeyman steamfitter card and this building trade. You're going to pursue aviation as a career and go wherever it leads and it's going to lead you to the airlines. You're going to meet the most amazing people, whose backgrounds are so different than yours. You're going to fit in with those very same people because all of you have the same passion for flight.”

As Cathy looks back, she can hardly believe where aviation has taken her and who she has become since those early days as a steamfitter. Those early flying lessons led her to grow into a person she didn't know she could be.

Cathy has met so many extraordinary people along her journey.  Flying redirected her path in life to a place in time, mind, spirit and soul she could not have dreamed. She pinches herself every day.

General aviation is where Cathy began and it's where her heart lies. The past several years she has been a STOLDrag racer, and absolutely loves it. It was created by Kevin Quinn and first appeared at Kevin's High Sierra fly-in in northern Nevada about 9 years ago. Kevin and his team of many, have grown STOLDrag and it's been a part of the Reno National Air Races since 2019.

Cathy recently replaced her PA16 Clipper with a Cubcrafters Carbon Cub FX2. It is a formidable aircraft in STOLDrag as well as the backcountry and she loves to fly it.

She also flies the backcountry "out west" and get to enjoy some of the best country on this planet. You'll see her in her new Carbon Cub at a STOL event soon and in the mountains of the western US.

Find Cathy on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Facebook: Cathy Page
Instagram: Stoldrag85
YouTube: Stoldrag85