By DAVID GUNTER

Feature correspondent

SANDPOINT — In the world of female pilots, the name Amelia Earhart is not spoken lightly. And for those in the know, the name of aerobatic pilot Vicki Cruse has its own particular resonance.

This week, both of these famous women were mentioned in the same breath, as 28-year-old Cocolalla resident Amber Phillips was awarded the Vicki Cruse Memorial Scholarship through the Amelia Earhart Scholarship Fund. She plans to use the scholarship money to study the ins and outs of low-speed flight, emergency maneuvers, spin and stall training and safety awareness throughout the summer.

“And some light aerobatics training,” the young pilot said, explaining that her airborne sessions will average 45-60 minutes in length. “They won’t be long lessons, because when you do certain maneuvers, your body gets discombobulated.

“You don’t want to spend too much time up there until you get used to it,” she added. “And I don’t exactly fly upside down on a daily basis.”

Not yet, anyway. By the time her lessons are complete, however, Phillips’ flying vocabulary will be populated by terms such as Hammerheads, Half-Cuban Eights and Immelmanns, not to mention a deeper understanding of the dynamics associated with rolls, loops and spins.

Her newfound skills will have a direct link to the woman for whom the scholarship is named, since Vicki Cruse was the winner of the U.S. National Unlimited Aerobatic title in 2007. Tragically, she died just two years later, when her borrowed airplane crashed during a qualifying flight for the World Aerobatic Championships in Great Britain.

The scholarship connection came through Phillips’ membership in The Ninety Nines — a group founded in 1929 by Earhart and 98 other women, and which Phillips joined in 2013, while still working toward her pilot’s license. The Amelia Earhart Memorial Scholarship Fund, begun in 1940, has distributed more than 800 scholarships and awards since that time.

The essay Phillips wrote for scholarship consideration garnered the judges’ attention for several reasons — chief among them the pilot’s almost 24-7 dedication to flight.

“I think being in aviation full-circle helped quite a bit,” she said. “Six to seven days a week, I’m doing something in aviation.”

That includes her day job at Quest Aircraft Company, where she leads a 19-member sub-assembly team that builds the smaller components for Quest’s Kodiak airplanes. Traditionally, many of those interested in planes have tended two cut in one of two directions — become an active pilot or get involved as an airplane mechanic.

“I couldn’t decide, so I ended up doing both,” said Phillips.

One of the tipping points for her interest in flight came from watching birds wheel about the sky, which caused the aspiring pilot to ask herself, “Why should the birds have all the fun?” Additionally, she has been the beneficiary of several mentors, whose guidance led to what can only be called a full-on obsession with flying.

In response, Phillips has taken an aggressive stance toward reaching down to give the next generation of pilots a hand, helping to establish a local 4-H aerospace program and working with the High School Aerospace Program at Sandpoint High School. Having her on board gives the students a glimpse at several facets of flight, including things that happen on the ground.

“If you want to be in aviation, there are lots of routes and opportunities,” said Phillips. “That’s something I try to get across to the kids I work with.”

That’s also why she believes it’s important to fit mentoring in with her full-time job at Quest and a training regimen that is about to become more packed than ever.

“I always had people help me out, so I decided to pay it back,” she said.

Her first memory of flying goes back to her teen-aged years, but Phillips’ personal involvement didn’t take place until she began work on her pilot’s license in 2012.

“When I was 15, my grandpa took me up in his airplane and it planted a seed,” she said. “But it wasn’t until I took my first lesson that I thought, ‘I’m going to do this.’”

By that time, Phillips already had ample experience in the building of planes, having been employed at Quest before she ever took a lesson. She credits her employer for making training funds available for her flight training and looks forward to using the scholarship funds to further hone her skills as she delves into low-speed safety training and aerobatic sequences. For those lessons, Phillips will be flying a light, two-seat Citabria plane out of Northern Air in Bonners Ferry.

“It’s an entry level aerobatics plane that lends itself well to this kind of flying,” she said.

But because this pilot’s interest in flight seems to know few boundaries, she confessed that her main focus of late has been flying a 1946 Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser seaplane owned by Coeur d’Alene Seaplanes and moored at Hayden Lake.

“That’s my favorite right now,” Phillips said. “I’ve always wanted my seaplane rating, because I love the water.

“It’s amazing,” she continued. “You can fly into a lake, go fishing, fly someplace for lunch and then fly home.”

Discussions of varied terrain and flying conditions bring to mind the Kodiak aircraft that Phillips helps to build. Those single-engine, turbo-prop planes feature a propeller that is situated well off the ground and extra shock-absorption on the landing gear to withstand the impact of abrupt landings — perfect for the “mission aviation” pilots who fly food and medicine into remote areas around the world, touching down and taking off on short runways that may be little more than a clearing surrounded by jungle.

True to form, Phillips has her eye on a future that, along with plans to get the instrument and commercial ratings that would allow her to conduct scenic flights in the region, includes flying this unique aircraft.

“You can definitely count on the Kodiak for getting into back-country airstrips,” she said. “It’s a very powerful airplane, but it’s also light on the controls — you don’t have to work hard to fly it.

“Eventually, I’d love to fly the Kodiak for Quest.”