Transatlantic teen.

Vicki Van Meter, a 12-year-old from Meadville, Pennsylvania, soared into the record books last summer as the youngest girl to pilot a plane across the Atlantic Ocean. "I did all the flying, navigations, and communications," Vicki says.

Vicki's skill comes from experience. She's been flying since she was 10. "I always wanted to become an astronaut," Vicki says. Flying lessons seemed to be a logical step. After her first airborne adventure, she was hooked.

Inspired by Amelia Earhart--who in 1932 became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic--Vicki took off for her transatlantic trip from Earhart's starting point, Augusta, Maine. Vicki's route took her northeast to Goose Bay, Canada, for a night's rest; to Greenland, for a mid-day lunch; on to Reykjavik, Iceland, for a fuel fill-up and an overnight; and finally to a smooth landing in Glasgow, Scotland (see map, below).

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What may look like a roundabout route was actually a sensible flight path for Vicki. "Safetywise, it's better to island hop," she says. "You can land places," instead of having water beneath you at all times. Vicki's plane, a single-engine Cessna 210, "isn't a sea plane," she explains. "If the plane went down, you'd have to bail out in a raft ... in 0[degrees] Celsius water."

BREATHLESS

Just to be on the safe side, Vicki and her flight instructor, who accompanied her on the trip, wore bright orange "survival suits" throughout their voyage. Though "really hot and uncomfortable," according to Vicki, the heavily insulated outfit can keep a body warm in frigid Northern Atlantic waters for up to 24 hours.

But the chilling thought of a water landing didn't worry Vicki. Her toughest problem during the trip was breathing--when she had to take her plane to high altitudes. "At one point we had to climb to 13,500 feet [4,050m] because of bad weather [below].... We were up there for a long time--an hour and 45 minutes--and I was suffering from a lack of oxygen," she recalls.

Oxygen is hard to come by at high altitudes because the air is "thinner" up there, says Jewel Barlow, a University of Marland aerospace engineer. That's because the air high in Earth's atmosphere is under less pressure; there's less air above it pushing down. So the molecules that make up the air--mainly nitrogen and oxygen--are free to float farther away from each other.

"When you suck in a lungful of [low-pressure] air," says Barlow, the oxygen-absorbing cells in your lungs can't deliver enough of the life-giving gas to your brain. In seconds, you feel dizzy and headachy.

"I was gasping for breath," Vicki recounts. "My eyes were rolling around." To make matters worse, she says, "we didn't have any oxygen masks." Vicki and her instructor didn't expect to fly so high for so long.

"I couldn't wait to go down to a lower altitude," Vicki adds. As altitude decreases, pressure increases, so there are plenty of oxygen molecules to go around.

NO PRESSURE

If you're like most land lovers, you probably never notice the concentration of oxygen around you, even in a plane. That may seem strange considering large commercial jets climb twice as high as Vicki's plane, where the air pressure is even lower.

The reason commercial fliers feel just fine, explains aerospace engineer Barlow, is that large planes have "pressurized" cabins; they maintain near-ground-level internal air pressure at all times. As a jet gains altitude, Barlow says, a compressor on each engine collects outside air and pumps it into the plane.

Large planes can withstand the difference between low atmospheric pressure outside the plane and higher internal pressure, says Barlow. They are built with strong, tightly sealed frames and double-pane windows. Pressurizing a plane without these features could cause it to explode like an overinflated balloon.

Despite all the "pressure" on Vicki's trip, "she was fully in control of the plane" at all times, says flight instructor Curt Arnspiger. "We never got off schedule more than half an hour," he adds, which is "phenomenal for this type of trip."

Now with her feet securely on the ground, what's next for Vicki Van Meter? A record-breaking flight around the world?

"I think I want to take a break from flying for a while," she says. But eventually, she adds, "I think going to Mars would be pretty neat." How's that for aiming high and reaching for the stars?