AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2018 - 46

PILOT BRIEFING
PEOPLE |

Saba island

The island of Saba, a municipality of
The Netherlands, is 28 miles southwest of the island of St. Maarten in
the Caribbean. The island nation's
airport, Juancho E. Yrausquin, boasts
the shortest commercial-use runway
in the world, measuring just 1,312 feet
long. The airport has high hills on one
side and cliffs on the other that drop
directly into the Caribbean Sea. Yrausquin Airport is a regular on many lists
of world's most dangerous airports.
You need to apply for permission from
the government to land there. The
island was the setting for the 1933 film
King Kong as "Skull Island."

Kellee Set Go!
Young pilot hosts travel show
B Y J U L I E S U M M E R S WA L K E R

46 | AOPA PILOT July 2018

mountains, and swum in exotic seas-and says
landing on the island of Saba, where the runway is just 1,312 long, is one of her top trips
from the show (see "Saba Island," above).
Edwards was a bank teller in San
Bernardino, California, who spent her days
dreaming and saving for her next travel
opportunity. She says that long before she
knew what blogging and vlogging were, she
took videos of herself on trips and put them
on YouTube.
"I was really a rookie, but was having so
much fun," she says. "I just wanted everyone
to know there's a whole world to see. And
that, as a black woman, I can do anything."

EMAIL julie.walker@aopa.org

CHAD SLATTERY

KELLEE EDWARDS teared up and could
barely get through the first introduction
to her Travel Channel show Mysterious
Islands. The show was such a dream come
true that the self-proclaimed "adventure
traveler" was overcome. But, like everything this bold young woman attempts, she
persevered and her adventures around the
world have now become one of the Travel
Channel's most-watched shows.
Edwards is afraid of heights, yet is a private pilot. She's afraid of the ocean, yet she's
a certified scuba diver. She'll overcome whatever obstacle is in front of her to get to travel.
She's been in more than 45 countries, scaled

She branded her blog and vlogs with the
moniker "Kellee Set Go."
In 2011 she was at Burbank Airport and
saw a small aircraft doing touch and goes.
"I was amazed and frankly shocked that a
small aircraft manned by just one person
was flying there," she said. "That moment
made me see aviation as accessible to the
civilian population; I had only been aware
that pilots came from military backgrounds. That visual of that lone pilot
stayed on my mind."
She went to Whitman Airport and
signed up for an introductory flight. "When
I was able to sit in that cockpit there was
an adrenaline rush and I was hooked. As a
frequent traveler, I figured why not take it
to the next level by being in the captain's
seat." The opening sequence of her first
Mysterious Islands show has her in the cockpit flying over Molokai in Hawaii.
"I flew around the island and it was one
of the most stunning views I've ever seen
from an aircraft-and I was piloting myself,"
she said. "All these years of hard work and
learning to fly led up to that moment I was
waiting for-to fly on my own TV show."

AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2018

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