Meet Natalie Kelley, the Founder of Fly Girl LLC

Her social media channels are used to engage with others and demonstrate all aviation has done for her and can do for anyone. Her business offers a line of popular aviation-themed apparel, accessories, and home goods aimed at female pilots and/or copilots (or anyone with a love of aviation)! The sale proceeds from these products fund aviation scholarships. The Fly Girl goods are available on her website, Sporty’s Pilot Shop, the Banyan Pilot Shop, as well as other retailers. In addition to her flying career and business, she is also a public speaker, blogger, occasional guest writer, and a cohost on a popular aviation podcast, Cockpits & Cocktails. The Fly Foundation has provided over $25,000 in funding for others since its inception in 2017. Since she began flying, she has learned a tremendous amount about business, airplanes, and flying. She is very passionate about aviation and loves helping others discover the endless possibilities of the sky.

Before founding FlyGirl LLC, Natalie went to school for business where she focused on specializing in Marketing. After school, she became a stay-at-home mom, where she wanted to spend her time with her children. As her kids started becoming older, she realized she had more time to spare to spend on her passions. She went to the bucket list she had made for all the things she hoped to do in her life. On this list was flying. Not flying as in something Superman did to protect his town, but flying a plane, a 152.9-ton vehicle that transports individuals all around the world. Natalie wanted to learn how to fly as she was surrounded by it as a child, and it was something she enjoyed. Her father was a military pilot and her uncle was a general aviation pilot. As a kid, she enjoyed the weekend trips and her time in the air, flying with both of her role models.

When she went to school, she noticed the lack of female representation in her aviation unit and realized that in general, there weren’t many female pilots in the industry at all. Natalie faced a lot of skepticism and judgment from her peers since there weren’t many older fly school students that were women to help mentor her and guide her through her time there. Even after she received her pilot’s license, a lot of individuals, especially men, doubted her ability to perform well in the pilot’s seat. Additionally, when looking at the merchandise that was available to pilots at the time, she realized that most of the shirts were curtailed to men and had more masculine designs. None of them fit her, nor were designs that she aligned with. Natalie realized that the pilot space should be open to everyone, not just men. Her husband, who was an entrepreneur by nature, supported her as she brainstormed ideas for her businesses and have her advice on his experience in the business world. Natalie used the skills from her marketing degree and started Fly Girl LLC, where she wanted to change the narrative of aviation clothing and have it be more woman-centered than it previously had been. In addition, Natalie does commercial services, such as ferry flying, which is flying planes to different locations, and co-piloting, as many companies don’t hire full-time co-piloting staff due to cost constraints. In addition, she provides mentorship on the Fly Girl LLC website as well as on a podcast called All Things Aviation, trying to broaden the conversation that surrounds being a pilot and increase the information about the power that diversifying the aviation industry has.

Natalie realized that she wanted to use these profits for good, creating the Fly Foundation, where she tried to fund at least one scholarship a year, particularly for a woman to go to flight school. Many women find it hard to go to flight school, as it is usually just a hobby, and is hard to justify going to flight school due to time, money, and safety constraints. Natalie wanted to make this scholarship to encourage any woman of any age to follow her dream, as well as teach them that it is okay to spend money and invest in yourself. Along with the Fly Foundation, Natalie was able to continue being hired and got rated highly consistently. She eventually made all of her aviation businesses her main career and used her social media content to promote her Fly Girl platform and empower women. She also wanted to reach out to older women specifically and show that anyone can be anything, especially a mom.

For these scholarships, she works to find partners such as Seplanes Rating and Sporties. In addition to the funding Natalie raises through sales, this funding has helped raise $30,000 in 6 years, which has funded nine scholarships in total.

Women usually have to submit an essay, and supporting documents which include log books, and a medical certificate. Natalie wants to ensure that they don’t have problems before training and oftentimes they ask for references for a hobby, and instructor ratings. To decide who receives these scholarships, they form a committee to decide out of 300 women who will receive the scholarship. Usually, it takes 2 months to go through applications.

When developing her business, Natalie realized quickly that because hobbies are niches, there is a small market, specifically for flying, which meant there was no way to become a large market. Although it was hard when founding, Natalie focused on expanding awareness and partnerships to increase scholarships.

As Fly Girl LLC continues to expand, Natalie aims to coach more women, continue providing scholarships, redo her website, and develop programs for women that go through life changes. For example, changes like empty nesters and divorce, or if you want to change careers.

Her advice for women going into the aviation industry or women that wish to start their own business is to not be afraid. She encourages individuals to listen to themselves instead of getting scared by other people’s stories or outcomes. She emphasized that everyone has a different story, and you need to fight for yourself and what you believe in. Find what you feel an emotional connection to and keep persevering even when people don’t agree with you.

To support Natalie and Fly Girl LLC, we encourage you to not only learn more about the aviation industry but to also purchase her merchandise and support her social media content. It’s incredibly important to expand industries like these to different groups of individuals and include everyone in the conversation. Additionally, you can vote for the scholarship recipients on her website and get involved in helping another girl go to flight school. Visit The Fly Girl LLC website which is flygirlllc.com and follow their social media, as well as their Youtube channel.

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