Benjamin Cook Shipps

Benjamin Cook Shipps is the owner and president of Jack Brown’s Seaplane Base on Lake Jessie in Winter Haven, Florida, where he also serves on the Winter Haven Regional Airport Advisory Committee. Raised in Venice, Florida, Shipps grew up in an aviation family and took his first flight at age 18 at Venice Municipal Airport. Born with a congenital limb anomaly affecting both arms and leaving him with no hands, he overcame initial medical hurdles by securing a Statement of Demonstrated Ability (SODA) and eventually obtained an unrestricted FAA First-Class Medical certificate. He attended Liberty University, where he played as a walk-on kicker for the football team and graduated with a degree in Commercial Aviation, earning his commercial, instrument, multi-engine land and sea, and flight instructor certificates. Shipps began instructing at Jack Brown's Seaplane Base in 2011, spent the summer of 2013 flying de Havilland DHC-2 Beavers as a commercial charter pilot in Alaska, and returned to Florida. Designated as an examiner in 2018, he and his wife Alison acquired Jack Brown's Seaplane Base in 2019. He conducts Private, Commercial, Instrument, and Flight Instructor (CFI) practical tests in single-engine land and single-engine seaplane classes, flying roughly 500 hours annually with a focus on conducting checkrides.