What to do when flying blind – literally

Kaiya Armstrong was fourteen when she first started experiencing blurry vision – then went to get it checked out. What she thought would be a quick trip to the optometrist turned into a much more serious prognosis: she had an autoimmune disease, and would soon completely lose her vision.

Now 21 and legally blind, Kaiya is determined to show people there are truly no limits to what you do – disabled or not.

✈️ Up, up, and away… The certified pilot defied odds over-and-over again, as she learned to literally fly blind. Kaiya went through intensive training for nearly a year to obtain her pilots license, studying protocols in braille and working with a seeing copilot for verbal cues as she flew.

• “I told my mom, ‘I have to do this,’” Kaiya said of passing flight school. “I have to prove to myself and to everybody else, that if this is possible, we don’t have limits. We can do anything.”

💪 If you can dream it… Most recently, Kaiya and her co-pilot Tyler Sinclair flew from Arizona to Louisville as part of "Flight for Sight," a program created by the Foundation for Blind Children (which is located in Arizona).

The 2,500-mile trip was successful – albeit with a few stops along the way – and Kaiya was in the cockpit the whole time.

• While Tyler was there to help guide her vocally, the cross-country trip broke barriers for the visually impaired community.

🗯 What she's saying: “I think the biggest message I want everyone – both sighted and blind – to take away from this is that we don’t have limits,” Kaiya shared after her successful flight. “The only limits that we have are the ones that we’ve given ourselves, and I want everybody to stop limiting themselves.”