Wright Flight lets students earn their wings
Students in sixth grade through eighth grade can learn all about aviation and even fly a plane by completing the Wright Flight course. The free nine-week program is offered by the Experimental Aircraft Aviation Association Chapter 1077, which maintains an educational facility and hanger at Harry Clever Field in New Philadelphia.
Classes are held each Tuesday from 5-7 p.m., beginning with a student orientation on Jan. 30. The goal of the program is to encourage students to consider career choices in aviation and other technical fields.
Instructors for the course, all volunteers, include retired U.S. Air Force mechanics and pilots, so students are learning from the cream of the crop, according to Terry Henry, Wright Flight coordinator for EAA Chapter 1077. Class sizes are limited to about 20 students to allow plenty of individualized instruction.
The course combines classroom and hands-on instruction on everything from aviation history and the principles of flight to flying a plane with an instructor. Students also build a 1905 Wright Flyer wing rib to take home, make a logbook, and get a certificate of course completion, a T-shirt and a Young Eagle certificate recognizing their first flight.
Additionally, those completing the course are entitled to a free, online aviation ground school course valued at $250 to further help them train to become pilots.
“This is big fun for kids,” Henry said. “Parents tell me, ‘My son or my daughter didn’t like going to school, but they wanted to fly an airplane, and now they’re taking algebra and trigonometry because they see the value of it.’ They all say the course is a life changer.”
Graduation day is flight day. “That’s the most exciting part,” Henry said. “They bring their brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and we’ll have several hundred people floating around here that day.”
The program began more than 17 years ago with funding from the Timken Company and Jack Timken, whose Aunt Louise was the country’s first female corporate jet pilot.
“About 35% of our students are female,” Henry said. “We have two female graduates that are now air traffic controllers, one in Cleveland and one in Pennsylvania.”
Scholarships available
Those two female graduates became air traffic controllers with the help of scholarships from EAA Chapter 1077. “We’ve also given scholarships to a young man who wants to become an airline mechanic and a young woman who has earned her private pilot’s license and is currently pursuing a commercial pilot’s license,” Henry said.
Henry said the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization holds two fundraisers each year on Memorial Day and during Labor Day weekend. Individuals, businesses and other organizations also can donate to the Chapter 1077 Scholarship Fund.
To learn more about donating or to register for the Wright Flight course, call Henry at 330-340-2999.
EAA is an international group of aviation enthusiasts who meet to share ideas, exchange information, encourage aviation safety and serve the local aviation community. Anyone can attend an event or a meeting as a guest. Chapter meetings are held the second Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m. at 1802 E. High Ave. in New Philadelphia.
