Jessica Cox, 25, a girl born without arms, stands inside an aircraft. The girl from Tucson, Arizona got the Sport Pilot certificate lately and became the first pilot licensed to fly using only her feet.

Jessica Cox of Tucson was born without arms, but that has only stopped her from doing one thing: using the word “can’t.”

Her latest flight into the seemingly impossible is becoming the first pilot licensed to fly using only her feet.

With one foot manning the controls and the other delicately guiding the steering column, Cox, 25, soared to achieve a Sport Pilot certificate. Her certificate qualifies her to fly a light-sport aircraft to altitudes of 10,000 feet.

“She’s a good pilot. She’s rock solid,” said Parrish Traweek, 42, the flying instructor at San Manuel’s Ray Blair Airport.

Parrish Traweek runs PC Aircraft Maintenance and Flight Services and has trained many pilots, some of whom didn’t come close to Cox’s abilities.

“When she came up here driving a car,” Traweek recalled, “I knew she’d have no problem flying a plane.”

Doctors never learned why she was born without arms, but she figured out early on that she didn’t want to use prosthetic devices.

Jessica Cox, 25, earned a license to fly airplanes on October 10, 2008. Jessica also has two black belts in Tae Kwan-Do, a college degree in Psychology, and a thriving career as a motivational speaker. What doesn’t Jessica Cox have? Arms.A bilateral congenital limb deficiency doesn’t stop Ms. Cox from achieving and surpassing her goals. From birth on, her feet became her hands. She can drive a car, type 25 words per minute, and fly an airplane using her feet, without any special adaptations. She is the first woman without arms to earn a license to fly. 

“I highly encourage people with disabilities to consider flying,” Cox said. “It helps reverse the stereotype that people with disabilities are powerless into the belief that they are powerful and capable of setting high goals and achieving them.” 

Jessica earned her Sport Pilot certificate after training with Able Flight, a North Carolina flight training company that specializes in helping people with disabilities learn to fly. Ms. Cox won an Able Flight scholarship and was able to train with instructor Parrish Traweek free of charge.