Meet Jessica Cox, the World’s First Armless Pilot (Photos)

This is a wonder! Born armless Jessica Cox, born in 1983 and while she wore prosthetic limbs as a child, she eventually abandoned them in favour of using her feet to perform everyday tasks. She is the world’s first licensed armless pilot and she flies aeroplanes with her feet.

Mrs Cox is said able to drive a car without modifications, type on a keyboard and even play the piano, constantly proving that her disability would not hold her back.

Jessica in a speech said: ‘Naturally people saw me not having arms as a limiting factor, but I was there to prove them wrong. ‘At three years old I was involved in gymnastics, at six I started tap dancing lessons, I did modelling, I swam at five, 10-years-old I was doing Tae Kwon Do, I did every activity you could imagine.’

‘There’s nothing that can substitute the tactile ability of flesh and bone and my feet have that ability,’ she said.

Jessica Cox graduated from the University of Arizona in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a minor in communications.

Cox has not used prosthetic arms since she turned 14. Using her feet as most people use their hands, she is able, among other things, to drive an unmodified car with an unrestricted license, to type on a keyboard at 25 words per minute, to pump her own gas, and to put in and remove her contact lenses.

Jessica Cox flew in a single engine airplane for the first time via Wright Flight in 2005. Cox earned her pilot’s certificate on October 10, 2008, after three years of training, and is qualified to fly a light-sport aircraft to altitudes of 10,000 feet. She received her flight training through an Able Flight scholarship and soloed under the instruction of Parrish Traweek.

At the age of 10, Cox began training in taekwondo at a school in her home town of Sierra Vista. At the age of 14, she earned her first black belt. While in college at the University of Arizona Cox restarted her taekwondo training at an American Taekwondo Association club on campus. In an effort to help future students without the use of arms the instructors created an entire training curriculum by modifying the standard material from the ATA.

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