"The greatest danger is not that our aim is too high and we miss it,
But that our aim is too low and we reach it.
- source unknown

Pilot Biography

As a Co-Host for a popular syndicated TV Show, MayCay Beeler learned to fly for a television assignment. In a promotion to encourage viewers to follow in MayCay’s footsteps, General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) gave her the opportunity to fly free through first solo, in exchange for television coverage. Little did GAMA know that MayCay would eventually go on to earn her Airline Transport Pilot Certificate and become a world record-breaking pilot.

As an award-winning journalist, MayCay has produced many national TV features on aviation.  They include flying with General Chuck Yeager, Voyager pilots Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager; competing in a transcontinental air race; skydiving with the Navy Seals; and flying mock air combat over Southern California.

MayCay is a Flight Instructor (CFII) and an FAA Aviation Safety Counselor.  She is the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s (AOPA) Airport Support Network (ASN) volunteer for Greensboro, North Carolina’s Piedmont Triad International Airport.  In 2002, MayCay was named FAA Aviation Safety Counselor of the Year for the Southern Region. For over a decade, she has served as a volunteer flight instructor at the annual Greensboro area WINGS WEEKEND pilot proficiency safety program.  She has emceed pilot appreciation banquets and written press releases promoting aviation safety events.

On 9-11, after the attacks on America, MayCay appeared on-camera as an aviation consultant in newscasts on WXII-TV, the local NBC-TV network affiliate in Winston-Salem, NC.

MayCay has joined forces with the FAA to host local safety events, including one featuring the Airport Watch Program. There pilots learned to protect their home airports from terrorism.  Combining her passion for aviation with her journalism expertise, MayCay helps emcee air shows, and spreads the good news about General Aviation through newscasts, programs and reports. She appears as the on-camera host in “121.5”, a popular video on pilot/controller emergency communications. MayCay also hosts various FAA and AOPA Air Safety Foundation pilot videos including “Watch This”.   She has appeared in national TV commercials for the “Be-A-Pilot” Campaign, and in a 2005 pilot program as host of a new TV Series.

As an aviation journalist, MayCay recently piloted two crash survivors back to the Bahamian island that nearly stole their lives two decades ago. This compelling adventure is documented in her article “Return to Norman’s Cay”. It appears in the April 2004 edition of the world’s most widely read flying magazine: AOPA PILOT. A TV documentary is in the works.

Currently, MayCay is the Aerospace Education Chairman and News Reporter for the Kitty Hawk 99s, The International Organization of Women Pilots. She represents AOPA, the world’s largest civilian pilot organization, as an Air Safety Foundation Instructor, teaching seminars nationwide. Formally, MayCay has served as a Part 135 Piedmont Charter Pilot and Chairman of the Kitty Hawks 99s.  She was an applicant in NASA’s Journalist-in-Space Project, and a recipient of the Judy Resnick Aviation Scholarship. She has undergone regional jet airline pilot training.

MayCay has worked as a General Aviation Consultant to the designer of the exciting new experimental HondaJet by helping coordinate the world debut flight of the jet at the AirVenture '05 Oshkosh Air Show.

MayCay says she loves flight instructing and flying passengers because she considers it a privilege to share the joy of flight with others. When not flying the airways, MayCay can be seen on the airwaves as an occasional freelance TV News Weather Anchor and Spokeswoman in TV Commercials.