Love is in the Air
By: Kristin Baird Rattini | Categories: Alumni Celebrations
Flying club or matchmaking club? For Jennifer Telling, MS EAS 11, PhD EAS 13, MBA 21, and Shahin Mehrabanzad, AE 11, MBA 14, the Yellow Jacket Flying Club was both. While volunteering together at club events and working to maintain one of the club’s Cessna 172’s, these passionate aviation enthusiasts found true love in each other.
When they met in 2008, he was a rising junior aerospace engineering major, and she was starting her master’s degree in geophysics. “We definitely wouldn’t have met if it weren’t for the flying club,” Jennifer says.
They both had grown up in flying families. “I can’t remember a time I didn’t enjoy airplanes,” Shahin says. From a young age he attended air shows with his father, a private pilot, and knew he wanted to work in the aviation industry in some way.
Jennifer’s parents were also pilots who not only owned planes but raced annually in the legendary Reno Air Races. “Other families would take the family station wagon or minivan on a trip,” Jennifer says. “We just piled into the plane and flew.”
She started taking helicopter lessons at age 10. “They had to prop me up on phone books and pillows because I was too small to reach the controls,” Jennifer says. She took her first solo helicopter flight on her 16th birthday, earned her helicopter license a year later, and earned her fixed-wing license by age 18.
Both Jennifer and Shahin discovered the Yellow Jacket Flying Club, one of the country’s oldest continuously operating collegiate flying clubs, upon arriving on campus. They each instantly knew they’d found their home—and soon after, their flying partner for life. In August 2013, the couple celebrated Jennifer’s 27th birthday and the completion of her PhD and got engaged all in the span of three days. At their wedding in 2014, the groom’s cake was modeled after the airport used by the Yellow Jacket Flying Club.
“Flying is a huge part of our lives,” Jennifer says. They both serve on the pit crew during the Reno Air Races for her parents’ two AT-6 Texans, named “Almost Perfect” and “Baby Boomer,” and P-51 Mustang “Lady B”. They also volunteer for the Commemorative Air Force Airbase Georgia, which acquires, restores, and preserves aircraft, particularly from World War II. “It brings people together so you can transmit this generational knowledge about these planes,” she says.
Shahin has just earned his commercial pilot’s license. He currently manages airframe and engine acquisitions and leases for Delta Material Services. “What I really like about my job is it mixes both engineering and business,” he says.
While a student, Shahin held nearly every office in YJFC, including as president in 2010–2011, when the club applied for nonprofit status. He now serves as chair of the club’s board. He recently guided the YJFC’s proposal for a brand-new Cessna 172 through Cessna’s Top Hawk program. “This is exactly the type of advanced plane an engineering school should have,” he says. “It will introduce Tech students to the systems they will use if they move on to a professional flying role.”
The couple’s son, Gabriel, 20 months old, has clearly inherited his parents’ passion for flying; he loves watching airplane videos with Shahin. “We have aviation stuff everywhere in our house,” Jennifer says. “Shahin’s parents have joked that Gabriel doesn’t stand a chance.”
