jpower
Cleared for Takeoff
Hello everyone! New member here.
First of all, a little bit of background on my flying experience and on why, contrary to what I have heard from many people, SPL actually does fill a niche other than for people who can't obtain a medical. First things first: I'm 18 and have always loved anything that flies, especially airplanes. [Note: upon rereading, is actually quite a lot of background. Feel free to skip.] For those who are familiar with the Dulles Day / Plane Pull event, that's what first got me hooked about 11 years ago. For those who aren't from the DC area, Dulles sponsors an event each year to raise money for the Virginia Special Olympics. Basically, teams compete to see who can pull a FedEx cargo plane (usually a 727) 12 feet in the shortest amount of time. In addition to raising money, this event lets the public on the tarmac so they can experience aviation (including GA) firsthand.
Anyway, ever since then, I've been hooked. I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I knew I was going to get a pilot's license (*cough* certificate) at some point. The trouble was that my parents weren't about to shell out thousands of dollars for their kid to go flying. They did, however, keep my interest fueled by letting me fly a 172 at Dulles Aviation at Manassas Regional Airport once a year (this was my major birthday present). This was always a highlight of my year.
Flash forward to the summer of 2010, when I got a job through my school at Orbital Sciences Corporation in Dulles, VA. I didn't know that they would pay me, but surprise! When the offer letter came, I learned that I would indeed be paid for my work there over the summer. I OBVIOUSLY knew what I was going to do with it--fly! Only trouble--the PPL is waaayyyy too expensive. I started looking into the SPL, and found that I would have just enough to finish. I did a little poking around and found Chesapeake Sport Pilot at Bay Bridge Airport (W29) on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It's a serious drive for me to get out there, but I was able to do it! While I'm on the subject, I should definitely mention that they're a really fantastic outfit over there--all the instructors at CSP are absolutely top notch. My instructor had 25,000 hours of experience--not something you find at most flight schools to my knowledge. The instructor I flew with a few times when mine was out of town had 18,000 hours and Navy experience to boot. This sort of experience is not out of the ordinary for CSP.
The summer I was working, I could only fly on the weekends and didn't have enough time to finish up. I got within one lesson of soloing before the senior year of high school took over my life. At the end of senior year, my school allows students to take off the last month of school to complete a "senior project" of their choosing, so long as it has some educational merit. Guess what I chose.... [Extremely] long story short[er], I ended up finishing up at the end of this past summer due to weather, airplanes being down for maintenance, etc., and am now a freshman at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor studying aerospace engineering. None of this would have been possible without the SPL, so if any of those SPL naysayers lurk here (I don't know if they do), I wouldn't be flying without it, and that is proof enough for me that it is in fact a fantastic advancement in the regs.
Phew. End of background.
Now on to what I really intended to post about. Getting young (under 20 or so) people into flying. There are no young people training at Chesapeake Sport Pilot right now, and I know of only one other person my age who flies (he's soloed, but not taken a ride yet), and he lives on my hall. When I get home for summer break in April, I'll be going into a high school aviation class to talk to kids who are getting all their ground school done for free, because from what I understand, it is surprisingly difficult to get them to take that next step and actually get into an airplane.
So my question for for you all is this: how can we get more young people into aviation? I've been pondering this for a while, and if I was able to get a SPL, there's no reason at all other decently motivated people of my age shouldn't be able to. Money was my biggest problem, because my parents wouldn't finance my flying. Solution? I got a job. Time was also a problem. Solution? Summer break, which works wonders up through college.
Young Eagles flights work for a bit to get kids interested--I went for one when I was 10 and still distinctly remember the other kids grinning ear to ear when they walked back to the terminal building from the airplanes. But then the enthusiasm seems to wear off....
So here's what this all boils down to--my two overall questions ("Finally!" I hear you shout. Yes, finally!)
1) Why don't we have many young (<20 ish) people interested in flying?
and more importantly,
2) What can we do to make young people more interested in flying?
Looking forward to hearing what you have to say! Hopefully we can get a very interesting discussion going here.
First of all, a little bit of background on my flying experience and on why, contrary to what I have heard from many people, SPL actually does fill a niche other than for people who can't obtain a medical. First things first: I'm 18 and have always loved anything that flies, especially airplanes. [Note: upon rereading, is actually quite a lot of background. Feel free to skip.] For those who are familiar with the Dulles Day / Plane Pull event, that's what first got me hooked about 11 years ago. For those who aren't from the DC area, Dulles sponsors an event each year to raise money for the Virginia Special Olympics. Basically, teams compete to see who can pull a FedEx cargo plane (usually a 727) 12 feet in the shortest amount of time. In addition to raising money, this event lets the public on the tarmac so they can experience aviation (including GA) firsthand.
Anyway, ever since then, I've been hooked. I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I knew I was going to get a pilot's license (*cough* certificate) at some point. The trouble was that my parents weren't about to shell out thousands of dollars for their kid to go flying. They did, however, keep my interest fueled by letting me fly a 172 at Dulles Aviation at Manassas Regional Airport once a year (this was my major birthday present). This was always a highlight of my year.
Flash forward to the summer of 2010, when I got a job through my school at Orbital Sciences Corporation in Dulles, VA. I didn't know that they would pay me, but surprise! When the offer letter came, I learned that I would indeed be paid for my work there over the summer. I OBVIOUSLY knew what I was going to do with it--fly! Only trouble--the PPL is waaayyyy too expensive. I started looking into the SPL, and found that I would have just enough to finish. I did a little poking around and found Chesapeake Sport Pilot at Bay Bridge Airport (W29) on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It's a serious drive for me to get out there, but I was able to do it! While I'm on the subject, I should definitely mention that they're a really fantastic outfit over there--all the instructors at CSP are absolutely top notch. My instructor had 25,000 hours of experience--not something you find at most flight schools to my knowledge. The instructor I flew with a few times when mine was out of town had 18,000 hours and Navy experience to boot. This sort of experience is not out of the ordinary for CSP.
The summer I was working, I could only fly on the weekends and didn't have enough time to finish up. I got within one lesson of soloing before the senior year of high school took over my life. At the end of senior year, my school allows students to take off the last month of school to complete a "senior project" of their choosing, so long as it has some educational merit. Guess what I chose.... [Extremely] long story short[er], I ended up finishing up at the end of this past summer due to weather, airplanes being down for maintenance, etc., and am now a freshman at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor studying aerospace engineering. None of this would have been possible without the SPL, so if any of those SPL naysayers lurk here (I don't know if they do), I wouldn't be flying without it, and that is proof enough for me that it is in fact a fantastic advancement in the regs.
Phew. End of background.
Now on to what I really intended to post about. Getting young (under 20 or so) people into flying. There are no young people training at Chesapeake Sport Pilot right now, and I know of only one other person my age who flies (he's soloed, but not taken a ride yet), and he lives on my hall. When I get home for summer break in April, I'll be going into a high school aviation class to talk to kids who are getting all their ground school done for free, because from what I understand, it is surprisingly difficult to get them to take that next step and actually get into an airplane.
So my question for for you all is this: how can we get more young people into aviation? I've been pondering this for a while, and if I was able to get a SPL, there's no reason at all other decently motivated people of my age shouldn't be able to. Money was my biggest problem, because my parents wouldn't finance my flying. Solution? I got a job. Time was also a problem. Solution? Summer break, which works wonders up through college.
Young Eagles flights work for a bit to get kids interested--I went for one when I was 10 and still distinctly remember the other kids grinning ear to ear when they walked back to the terminal building from the airplanes. But then the enthusiasm seems to wear off....
So here's what this all boils down to--my two overall questions ("Finally!" I hear you shout. Yes, finally!)
1) Why don't we have many young (<20 ish) people interested in flying?
and more importantly,
2) What can we do to make young people more interested in flying?
Looking forward to hearing what you have to say! Hopefully we can get a very interesting discussion going here.
followed by 
once they read the first page.
