Escambia County High School senior Amber Hubert has her head in the clouds – often quite literally.

At only 17, Hubert is only a few routine exercises away from having her private pilot’s license and will have a chance to expand her skills this fall when she reports to the campus of the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Simply being accepted into the university, which is historically a male-dominated institution, is an achievement, but Hubert is no stranger to accomplishing goals most only dream of attempting.

“A lot women don’t go into it,” Hubert said. “It was cool. They sent me a letter in the mail and I went to their web site and scrolled down to the bottom and it had a check mark saying admitted so I was asking everybody ‘does this mean I got accepted?’’

Hubert’s acceptance letter into the university said it all.

“Embry-Riddle graduates tell us they remember the moment of their admission,” it reads. “Congratulations, this is your moment.”

Hubert said the actualization of her dream is a goal attained after years of work that began with a simple trip to a relative’s home.

“I went flying last year twice to Maryland to my cousin’s house,” she said. “I got back and (my uncle) asked me how was flying. He said, ‘Do you have an interest in it? How do you like it?’ So my Christmas gift from him was he got me the flight lessons.”

The lessons began in June 2011, and today Hubert is close to being certified to fly.

“I had to get 40 hours and I have 40.2 now,” she said. “I have the hours, but I have to do a cross-country to Camden. I went to Greenville last Saturday by myself. That was my first solo cross-country.”

Hubert’s flight to Camden came and went Saturday and she is now only a few tests away from her license.

“The last one that I’ll have to do is I’ll have to go to Greenville and Camden at the same time. I just do a touch and go,” she explained.

Hubert’s “touch and go” refers to an exercise during which she will touch down at both airports but not actually perform a complete landing.

“After that I have to work on slow flight again. After I do that I’ll study for my test. I’ll have to take the written test and do a check ride,” she said.

Hubert said she has her uncle, Rick Johnson, to thank for much of her ability to turn a childhood dream into a young woman’s reality.

“He really did get me well interested in it, but when I was in eighth grade we had a flight simulator in our career technologies class and I used to always like the flight module,” she said. “But he took me in his plane over Pensacola Beach and let me fly over the water.”

Hubert said her experience flying in her uncle’s single-engine Piper airplane was all it took to make her realize she wanted to fly for a living.

Today she is preparing herself for possibly piloting much larger aircraft by working to attain her license in a plane like her uncle’s.

“I started out with a Piper PA 28-140 and now I fly a Cessna 172,” she said.

Saturday morning Hubert prepped for her second solo cross-country flight at Atmore Municipal Airport.

As her mother, Wanda, and instructor, Bart Griffith, looked on she lifted off headed south into the wind and prepared to turn left to embark on an approximately 30-minute flight to Camden.

“She’s a unique breed,” Griffith said as Hubert’s plane faded from sight. “She’s very academically involved. There’s a shift in knowledge she had to make and she’s really been on it.”

Hubert’s mother said she is constantly impressed by her daughter’s thirst for life and ability to overcome daunting odds.

“It amazes me,” she said. “You couldn’t have told me when she was growing up that she would be doing something like this. My main thing is that, besides flying, she is just a positively spirited person who reaches out to other people. Our family is extremely proud of Amber.”

Hubert herself said her family has played a tremendous role in her success.

“My grandma is the only one who is really, well she doesn’t want me to fly,” Hubert said chuckling. “She’s not really for it, but she still supports me.”

Despite embarking on solo flights that reach altitudes of 4,500 feet Hubert said she is still working on the “scary” aspects of flying planes.

“Landings,” Hubert said. “When your landing you have to keep the nose pointed at the runway until a certain point and then you round it out and I’m always afraid I’m going to crash into the ground so I always round it out a little high. But that was it. Just the landing. Landings are hard.”

As Hubert masters the craft of flying, she is also preparing to graduate from ECHS and ready herself for life in college.

“I’ll be working on a bachelor’s of science in aeronautical science,” she said. “I’ll be taking your basics and then introduction to flying, aerodynamics, different classes like that.”

Even with her success in the sky, those around Hubert said the most amazing thing about her is her ability to achieve success while keeping her feet firmly on the ground.

Hubert is the daughter of Norman and Wanda Hubert of Atmore.