Although she had received over 33 hours of flight training, seven-year-old Dubroff did not hold a medical certificate from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), nor any pilot or student certificate. In the U.S., a person must be at least 16 years of age to be eligible for a student pilot certificate, and 17 for a pilot certificate. Since Dubroff was not certified to fly the plane, a rated pilot (normally her flight instructor Reid) had to be at the controls during all flight operations. While the coast-to-coast flight was promoted as a "record" attempt because of Dubroff's young age, there was no known body recognizing record flights by underage "pilots" at the time of her flight ("The Guinness Book of Records" had officially discontinued its "youngest pilot" categories seven years earlier, because of the risk of accidents).