Gina Jordan, as a flight instructor, introduced thousands of pilots to the joy of flight, guided and inspired hundreds of aspiring students to become career pilots during her 17,000 hours of flight.
Gina was born in 1929 in New Brunswick near the present day Saint John Airport. In 1952 she learned how to fly at the Fundy Bay Flying Club and by 1959 had obtained her Instructor rating and started teaching. In 1963 she moved to Calgary as an instructor with Chinook Flying Service and by 1970 opened her own advanced flying school, Jordan Flight Services doing IFR and Commercial training. In 1982 she sold her flying service and after training in Redwoods, California, became the second woman to fly for Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) as a missionary pilot until retirement in 1994. She flew over hundreds of miles of rain forest without navigational aids, no roads, and into remote jungle villages where grass airstrips had been hacked out of the forest. Aside from flying in the Cessna 404 and Beech 99, she also trained pilots in Tanzania on the Cessna 402 and on the Partnavia in Madagascar. She was a director of MAF from 1996 until 2001.
Between her sortees to Africa, Gina also flew as a corporate pilot in a Piper Navajo in Calgary, Alberta, flying oil rig workers thoughout northern Alberta and Saskatchewan. She flew in four Powder Puff Derbies between 1967 and 1970 and was a member of The Ninety-Nines, Inc.
After retirement Gina was involved with CASARA at the Saint John Airport back in New Brunswick.
