Michelle Huntington

In her own words

I was seven when I flew in a Mirage fighter jet. Dad was in the Air Force and we were living in Malaysia at the time. I remember the noise, the G-force and the quiet focus that followed. Something clicked and I knew I wanted to fly. 

By Year 10 I was told women couldn’t be pilots. The advice was to focus on art instead, so I did. I became a working artist for a few years, but the idea of flying never really left it just waited. 

At 27, as a single mum, I decided to return to it. My first loan application was declined with the comment that “women aren’t pilots.” I still remember reading that line. I found another bank. I sold my house and car. I moved in with my mum in Sydney and flew six days a week to earn my licences. 

I went into instructing first. Teaching others to fly forces you to sharpen your own thinking. You can’t hide behind instinct, you have to explain it.  

From there I moved into charter aviation, flying into remote strips and mining sites where conditions changed quickly and preparation mattered. Later, I became a Captain and joined a major Australian airline, flying larger aircraft with more complexity and greater responsibility. 

What has kept me in aviation all these years is mastery. Even on the same route, no two flights are identical. There is always something to notice, something to refine. 

Early in my training, an instructor told me you can fly one hour a thousand times, or a thousand different hours. I chose the second. I still do. That idea extends well beyond the cockpit. 

Crucial lessons from the cockpit 

Aviation taught me very quickly that disruption isn’t an exception, it’s part of the operating environment. Weather shifts, systems misbehave, timelines move. In transport, you’re working inside complex, moving systems. You don’t wait for ideal conditions. You work with what’s in front of you. 

Anti-fragility is a principle I return to often. Under pressure, some systems weaken. Others endure. The most effective ones learn and adapt because of the stress. In operational settings, every unexpected event carries information. The work is to notice it, interpret it well and adjust accordingly. 

Over time I’ve also learned that thinking is trainable. The way we frame a situation influences the decisions we make next. When I was told women couldn’t be pilots, I had to decide whether that statement was fact or someone else’s assumption. That habit of separating the two has served me repeatedly, particularly in environments where decisions are made quickly and often with incomplete information. 

Aviation also reinforced the practical value of diversity. In safety-critical work, different perspectives reduce blind spots. In the cockpit, input strengthens the outcome, even though accountability ultimately rests with the Captain. Clear communication sits at the centre of that responsibility. 

Over time, I’ve learned to test ideas, refine tools and keep adjusting. Decision-making improves when you treat it as a practice, not a personality trait. 

Bringing art and aviation together 

Art has always run alongside aviation for me. For a while I treated them as separate worlds. One was structured and procedural. The other was open and exploratory. Over time I realised they inform each other more than they compete. 

I still paint and sell my work, and I run artist-in-residence programs in schools. When I work with students, the first hurdle is hesitation. They want to get it right. I tell them to start anyway. Clarity often follows action. 

That principle applies in the cockpit as well. You rarely have perfect information. You assess what you have, choose a direction and commit. Creativity is the ability to see options. Discipline is what turns those options into sound decisions. 

Moving between art and aviation trained me to be comfortable in both structure and ambiguity. It sharpened my ability to zoom out, see patterns, and then zoom back in and execute with precision. 

That intersection still shapes how I approach pressure, leadership and decision-making.