Data Security Expert And Pilot Ashwini 'Ash' Ahuja - Barcelona, España - United Spinal Association

Descripción

After flying for 13 years, Ashwini "Ash" Ahuja finally found a plane accessible enough to purchase, but there was only one way to get it from Florida to his home in California — fly it cross-country.

Preparing for Take-OffWhen you ask Ahuja what city he grew up in, he can't tell you.

That's because his father was a pilot for the Indian Air Force, so he grew up an army brat on bases all over India.

Having grown up around planes all his life, Ahuja planned to follow in his dad's footsteps and become a pilot.

But after becoming paralyzed at age 11 from an unknown virus, he put his dreams of flying on hold.

In 2010, well after immigrating to America and establishing a fulfilling career in data security in Connecticut, he found Philly Sport Pilot, a New Jersey flight school owned by a wheelchair-using pilot.

Ahuja learned how to fly with factory-built hand controls on a Sky Arrow 600, a tandem two-seater aircraft. Ahuja was the school's first wheelchair-using student. He graduated with his pilot's license in three months.
"If you compare hand controls in a plane with hand controls in a car, there are more things in the plane that you are constantly doing all the time, especially during take-off and landing, so the hand controls must be configured in such a way that you can do all the things required to fly a plane without taking your hands off the controls," says Ahuja.

After learning on and flying Sky Arrows for many years, Ahuja mastered the complicated stickwork needed to make that plane soar, but he eventually felt the need for something new.

"I liked the Sky Arrow, but I didn't own it, it was too small to fit my wheelchair and I wanted to actually go places.

I was only borrowing it when I wanted to fly, but I needed something of my own that was more practical," says Ahuja.

Three years of internet research and talking to other wheelchair-using pilots around the globe led him to a Paradise P1 for sale in Florida.

Ahuja lives in San Francisco.

Thankfully, the owner of the company selling him the plane not only agreed to install the hand controls, but fly back to California with him.

"I could've just hired someone to fly the plane for me, but I wanted to experience flying from coast to coast myself, and surprisingly, not a lot of people have done that because in flying, any flight over 50 miles is considered a cross-country flight," he says.
When you're a pilot and a wheelchair user, such flights can be extra tricky.

He tried to plan a route that would allow him to stop at airports with more services and staff that could help him, but that wasn't always possible.

Not every airport they flew into during the journey had an accessible bathroom or an accessible way to travel from the airport once you land.

"Finding an accessible washroom is definitely an issue, and there were some airports we landed at that didn't have Uber or Lyft in the area. When you land at airports like that, some of them have crew cars for pilots to use, but many are trucks that I can't get into. So if I was by myself, I'd have to think about how I could go get food or go to a hotel," says Ahuja.
Ahuja enjoyed the experience and hopes it motivates others to push the limits.

"I fly to actually reach new heights and break new ground, but I also fly because as a pilot I can go anywhere," he says.

"I'm not restricted by cars, roads or the earth itself, and when I'm flying, I'm no different than any other pilot in the sky.

It's the same freedom I experienced when I first started driving, but increased tenfold."

Managing MindsetAhuja explains how the power of his father's belief in his capabilities allowed him to resist internalizing the belief of many in India that people with disabilities will never amount to anything.

"The whole mentality of people in India is if you're in a wheelchair, you're an invalid and you need to be pushed around by somebody else. That's how most people think. Growing up in a place like India, I have to give full credit to my parents, my dad especially. There was nothing that he would be like, 'You can't do that.' Anything I wanted to do, he would say, 'Of course' and would carry me sometimes up three to five flights of stairs just to get me to places. It was like, 'Oh, you want to go there? Sure, I'll take you there.' He did that all the time and helped shape my mindset.
Also in India, very rarely would you find a person in a wheelchair driving a car. I was driving a car and being independent, and I think that changed me the most.

Luckily, I had a friend who used a wheelchair who was driving and encouraged me to drive and get hand controls.

I was driving in India for five or six years before I came to the U.S.

I visited England when I was 16 with my dad and that's when I realized how different the mindset is in some of these developed countries compared to India where they're constantly staring at you, asking you weird questions and people are more interested in watching you than helping you.

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Most accessible place you've been:
In the U.S., Cincinnati or the Midwest. Outside of the U.S., Barcelona.
What accessibility law do you want changed?
The idea that buildings can be grandfathered as inaccessible as heritage buildings.
Adaptive technology that changed your life?
The two I use a lot are the SmartDrive and Freewheel.
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