Flying high: How Ireland’s only female aerobatic pilot is breaking barriers and defying gravity
Laura Russell, Ireland's first female aerobatic stunt pilot, preparing for the Las Vegas World Advanced Championships in November, 2023.
While many women enjoy bonding with their mothers on Sunday spins and the odd afternoon tea date, Cork aerobatic stunt pilot Laura Russell has other ideas.
And fortunately - unlike some Irish mammies - her mother Mary Russell is not impartial to the occasional extreme sport day out. Getting to experience spins and loops while thousands of feet in the air is just one of the perks of having Ireland’s first and only female aerobatic stunt pilot as your daughter.
“Mum has been up with me and she loves it,” Laura says.
“She has been in other light aircrafts with me so she’s well used to small airplanes but this was her first time in an aerobatic plane. They are quite different to normal flights.
"The feeling is almost like strapping the airplane on to you because it’s quite cosy. You have a harness and there’s not a lot of room to move around in your seat. I gave mum quite a good briefing on what to do in the aircraft when you’re properly strapped in.”
The flight was a memorable experience for both mother and daughter - and there were no real fears involved.
“When you put the canopy down there is an amazing view because you have such an incredible field of vision. It’s not like a little windscreen in front of you. We’re talking about a 180 degree panorama.
"She was more anxious about getting inside and being strapped in than the actual flight itself I think. I didn’t do anything too extreme. It was just a short 20-minute flight but she loved everything about it especially the noise and power of the aircraft."
As a day job, Laura earns her living as a First Officer with Aer Lingus. The former UCC physics student said her passion for flying was sparked when, at the age of 19, her grandmother gifted her a flying lesson. She was also inspired by her aunt who lives in Florida.
“I’m the first and only person to fly in the family. My aunt, who lives in Florida, flies horses around the world, but not as a pilot. You would typically describe her as a flying groom but that really undersells what she does.
"She escorts horses around the world for the rich and famous. She is an amazing woman who, just like my mum, has loved horses from day one.”
As an aerobatics pilot, Laura has a number of accolades under her belt. She made history in 2023 after becoming the first Irish woman to compete at the World Advanced Aerobatic Championships in Las Vegas.
She is now training for the 2026 European Advanced Aerobatics Championships.
“I was in the European championships in Romania last September,” she adds. “However, I didn’t do as well as I would have liked because I didn’t have much training time. My plan this year is to train like a mad thing because I haven’t been able to spend a lot of time doing that.
"There has been a lot of travelling to competitions and gearing up for them. When you do a competition you are there for a week or two but the flight itself is only around 15 minutes long. It ends up becoming quite an expensive pursuit.
"You learn a lot but it’s not enough. Sometimes you need to just go away and fly two or three times a day and immerse yourself in it. I haven’t had much of that in the last few years but I am going to the UK for 10 days to do exactly this. It will be the first blast of training I’ll be doing in a long time.”
Laura, who also teaches aerobatics at the British Aerobatic Academy, is glad to be a role model for aspiring pilots.
“We get kids coming to the flight deck and they are always told by the cabin crew and whoever I’m flying with that I do aerobatics. You don’t see this stuff on a day-to-day basis so it’s really nice to have it out there. I’d like to show people that if you want to do an extreme sport there is no barrier to that.”
And Laura says there is huge public interest and support for what she does.
“Since I started publicising this everyone’s response has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s incredible. Nobody has said to me that they’d like to become a pilot after seeing what I’ve done but some say they would now love to have a flying lesson or fly aerobatics with me. This in itself means just as much.”
And does mum Mary ever get worried?
"She doesn’t worry about me flying as she has been in the aerobatic plane with me and knows what goes on but I still send her a thumbs up after each flight to let her know I’m still alive.”
