A Heritage to Hustle – Yogini Modi Trains India’s Pilots in South Florida (AFW Jul-Sep 2025)
This article was published in the July-September 2025 issue of Aviation for Women Magazine.
At 15%, India proudly boasts the highest percentage of women pilots in the world, and Yogini Modi is doing her part to feed that pipeline at Pilot Training Center Homestead in South Florida.
Yogini first realized her interest in aviation as a child when she and her brother found themselves at the airport and a small plane parked only ten feet away. They joined the National Cadet Corps, Airwing program (similar to the Civil Air Patrol in the U.S.), and Yogini learned to fly a glider in college, but her eyesight disqualified her from flying for the Indian Air Force. She joined the Army Service Corps instead and served for ten years as a logistics specialist before retiring as a Major.
At her first unit she saw a solicitation for the Army Service Corps microlight team—an Army Adventure Wing team flying the equivalent of ‘light sport’ aircraft in the U.S.—and eagerly volunteered as a pioneering member. Not wanting their flying experience to be limited to the local traffic pattern, in 2001 Yogini co-led the team through a 2,230km cross-country expedition from Gaya to Bangalore. Because this type of flying was relatively new in India, the team set the record for longest microlight flight in the country, and Yogini flew the longest flight by a woman in the light sport category, a record she happily reports has been broken many times by other women since.
After ten years of military service, Yogini had cemented her love of flying and knew she wanted to pursue a career in aviation. She had always aspired to study abroad, so she researched flight school opportunities in other countries and decided the birthplace of aviation was the place to be. She traveled to South Florida to earn her civil certifications where she was impressed by the freedom of flight we enjoy in the U.S., and the robust pilot training resources offered, and the sense of community fostered, by organizations like AOPA. She decided the Indian aviation community had much to learn from the U.S. and she wanted to take part in sharing those lessons.
Yogini returned to India after five months of training with her CFII certificate and spent the next year developing a plan to return to the U.S. to open a flight school. She opened for business in 2010 with a leased room and one aircraft at Miami Homestead General Aviation Airport (X51), sitting in the outdoor tiki hut hoping for students to trickle in, often flying only four flights a week. By word of mouth, her student base slowly grew while she simultaneously pursued the various requirements to open the school to international students.
By 2017 Yogini had expanded to four aircraft when the Homestead General FBO facility was for sale. She took on the FBO and began expanding her operations. Today, Pilot Training Center Homestead has 13 Cessna 172 Skyhawks, 2 Piper PA-34 Senecas for multi-engine training, and a Redbird flight simulator. At any given time, the school has around 20 local and 50 international students. Yogini manages and takes care of her international students like a military commander, providing them fully furnished housing and a strict set of rules to keep them focused and progressing through their training. She also fosters community by celebrating their various cultures.
“I believe when you have the comfort of home, progress is faster. We celebrate the festivals of our students, not just Indian ones but if we have a South American student, or a Middle Eastern student, we celebrate all the festivals they celebrate. That makes them feel like part of the family and gives them a sense of belonging.”
Yogini doesn’t have to advertise commercially in other countries. “One student goes back and they send four more students,” she says. “In India, the Army has a lot of respect, so parents know their children are not going to get into any other activity but flying.”
As the school and Indian student pipeline grew, time zone differences made it difficult to manage the recruiting and onboarding process for her students. Serendipitously, a close friend from the Army Service Corps was available to handle this work back in India. Preeti Menon was Yogini’s course mate, assigned as her ‘buddy’ during their initial military training, and holds an advanced management degree from the Indian Institute of Management. Preeti took on the role of International Student Coordinator, vetting prospective students, liaising with them and their families, and guiding them through the process of getting their visas to travel to the U.S for training. Yogini’s longstanding rapport with Preeti facilitates efficient daily communication and ensures smooth and well-informed transitions for the students.
Indian aviation regulations differ from the U.S. in that an Air Transport Pilot certificate is not required to work for an airline—a commercial license is all that is needed to serve as a first officer. Yogini’s students return to India with their commercial licenses, and after a certificate conversion process to recognize their qualifications, they can apply to airlines.
In 2023, 18 percent of the pilot licenses issued in India were to women during a time of exponential growth in aviation. “Fortunately, the aviation sector in India is booming right now,” says Yogini. “Every Indian company is hiring, multiple companies have new airplane orders pending, and the Indian government is activating more and more airports for commercial aviation. This growth is going to continue for many years.” 19.8 percent of the Indian students who have graduated from Pilot Training Center Homestead are women—at one point in 2024, they comprised 40% of her Indian students.
One of her first priorities after purchasing the FBO and expanding her footprint and training offerings was to have a Ninety-Nines compass rose painted on the tarmac, which she had first seen at SUN ‘n FUN during her initial training in the U.S. She learned about The Ninety-Nines and knew she wanted to include what they represented on her property. This led to her active involvement in the local Goldcoast Chapter, taking on leadership roles, hosting Let’s Fly Now outreach events, and offering and fundraising for various flying scholarships for the chapter.
When she learned about the Women in Leadership: Program for Emerging Leaders for Women in Aviation International through Professional & Executive Development—Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, she eagerly applied, seeing a chance to hone her business and leadership skills while furthering her dream to study abroad. “At Harvard I learned so many things. First of all, I met so many incredible women. There were 30 of us and everyone brought their amazing experiences onboard. It was mind-blowing. Recently, in the Harvard chat, someone asked if we had used our ‘power pose.’ I said I don’t know about power pose, but I have become more assertive, more efficient, and more bossy,” she says, tongue-in-cheek. “They taught us so much about communication and overcoming obstacles. I’m going to use this throughout my life.”
Yogini’s Harvard experience led her to the WAI annual conference in Denver, where she was impressed by the organization’s impact and reach. “WAI brings the best of the best together, and they are building up one beautiful network. That fabric is going to give a lot of upliftment to tomorrow’s women.”
One of Yogini’s main motivations in opening a school in the U.S. was to share our best practices with the Indian aviation community. “That’s why I decided to ‘import’ students here. It’s not only one person exporting, it’s multiple people exporting good things from the U.S. to India.” In her 15 years in business, Pilot Training Center Homestead has graduated over 800 students, 60% of them from India. Most are actively flying for Indian airlines.
Incrementally, Yogini has bought other businesses at the airport. This spring, she broke ground on a 13,600 square foot hangar and is building an additional 55K square feet of ramp, the biggest improvement project at Homestead General in 30 years. When Yogini started her business, there were only a handful of employees at the airport. She now employs 40 full- and part-time personnel. She is also working with the county to extend the runway to 5,500’. Her goal is to have the facilities to support the growth of corporate and jet traffic and to house those and other aircraft in the hangars. “When airplane owners come to the airport, they invest in the local community. I want to bring that to Homestead. I grew up here in my business life, so I owe that to Homestead.”
For more about Yogini’s journey, listen to the full interview available on the Literary Aviatrix website, YouTube channel, and podcast.
