Vicki Van Meter was 11 when she hopscotched from Maine to California at the controls of a single-engine Cessna 172.

On her way back home, she accepted an invitation to visit the Johnson Space Center in Houston. She sat in a space shuttle simulator and successfully landed it on her second try. In another simulated exercise, she repaired a satellite in the manned maneuvering unit. She also received a scholarship to the U.S. Space and Rocket Camp in Huntsville, Ala.

Ms. Van Meter, whose dream in those years was to become an astronaut and fly to Mars, died late Saturday evening at her home in Meadville. The Crawford County coroner's office said the cause was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She was 26.

A year after her cross-country flight, in 1994, the straight A student flew from Maine to Scotland with stops in Newfoundland, Greenland and Iceland in a single engine Cessna 210 she named "Harmony."

"It's a great challenge, but I'm confident I can do it," she said before the flight. "I'm excited. It's going to be real fun." She said she had only one worry -- boredom. "Over water, there's nothing to look at."

She was accompanied on each flight by a flight instructor because she couldn't get her pilot's license until she was 16. But she did all the takeoffs, landings, communications, fuel calculations and navigation by herself.

She started taking flying lessons in 1992 and prided herself at the time on flying manually with no automatic pilot features.

Her brother, Daniel, 28, told The Associated Press that his younger sister had been fighting depression of late but didn't want to take medication for it. He said that was one of the reasons she recently decided to apply to graduate schools where she planned to study psychology.

"She was unhappy, but it was hard for her to open up about that and we all thought that she was coping," he said. "This really is a shock because we didn't see the signs."

Corrine Van Meter told the AP that she spoke to her daughter almost every day, including March 13, a birthdate they shared.

She said her daughter called from the home she occupied with her cat and two dogs to say that she was cooking and enjoying a glass of wine.

Mrs. Van Meter, 57, said her daughter loved animals, had a sharp sense of humor and was very intelligent.

"She led a full and interesting life. She had more guts than any of us could ever imagine. We will miss her dearly, but we are very, very aware that she is doing important work somewhere else right now."

Ms. Van Meter's widespread fame as a young pilot led to numerous television appearances and an invitation to the White House.

She is one of 47 pilots featured in a traveling exhibit, "Women and Flight -- Portrait of Contemporary Women Pilots." It is now at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

In addition to her aviation accomplishments, Ms. Van Meter served as a Peace Corps volunteer for two years in Cahul in southern Moldova, a small country sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine in eastern Europe.

She earned a degree in criminal justice from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in Erie County and had been working for an investigative firm.

In addition to her mother and brother, Ms. Van Meter is survived by her father, James, a former pilot who drove his daughter to flying lessons in Columbus, Ohio, and a sister, Elizabeth.

Funeral arrangements are by Byham Miller Mizner Funeral Home Inc. in Meadville, Crawford County.