Young Eagle!
“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
— John Secondari (Who? You know, the American TV documentary-making legend. But this quote is almost uniformly attributed, falsely, to Leonardo da Vinci. Secondari wrote it for his 1965 documentary, “I, Leonardo da Vinci.” That said, the 15th-century Italian polymath does have some prophetic (and authentic) flying quotes in his Codex on the Flight of Birds).
The sole mission of the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Young Eagles Program is to introduce and inspire kids in the world of aviation. Since 1992, EAA volunteers have helped more than two million youngsters experience the joy of flight. Those Young Eagles’ flights are recorded in the EAA’s World’s Largest Logbook, on permanent display in the EAA Aviation Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
This morning we added one more aspiring pilot to that logbook!
Coordinated by EAA Chapter 12’s Young Eagles Coordinator Dean Doolittle, I met 14-year-old Ethan (not his real name) and his dad at Houston Southwest Airport (KAXH). While we waited for the morning fog to clear, we chatted about the flight and previewed our proposed route both on an old paper chart and the latest flight planning software. EAA recommends that these introductory flights be 20-30 minutes long, but my experience has been that if someone has the opportunity to fly over their house, they LOVE it. So, we planned to be in the air a little longer to make that happen.
Ethan helped preflight the plane, and asked a TON of good questions along the way. How low are you allowed to fly? How high? Can you fly in the rain? The clouds? What does the gas cost? When you talk on the radio, who are you talking to? How fast do we go? What happens if you hit a bird? How do you go about learning to fly? An unquenchable thirst for knowledge! For a kid that had never been in a plane, he was a quick study!
We took off and headed south, then east, toward Ethan’s house in League City. Ethan captured the take-off, the climb, and the scenery across south Houston on his phone. “Everything looks different from up here,” he exclaimed! As we approached League City, he pointed out familiar landmarks, and we flew over his neighborhood, close to the Ellington Field airspace.
Then it was time for the good part! We turned back southwest, and, after a brief tutorial, Ethan took the controls. He flew from “start” to “stop” as marked on this flight track, with almost no help. Smooth turns, deliberate climbs and descents. No over-controlling and, unlike many young fliers, he kept his gaze outside the airplane. A natural!
He also continud to ask good questions, and kept a smile on his face!
For amusement, we recorded the flight on a new flight instructor-oriented software platform, CloudAhoy, that enables detailed debriefings by allowing you to replay the flight in 3D (or in a cockpit view) on a screen at home afterwards. Maybe one day Air Force pilot Ethan will look back nostalgically on his first turns and banks….
Despite threatening to make him land the plane because he was flying so well, I let him off the hook so he could snap some more photos as we flew the traffic pattern to land. On the ground, Ethan got his Young Eagle certificate and logbook, and we ditched our masks briefly for the requisite postflight photo op. I think he’s hooked!
As our Young Eagle’s dad exclaimed, “Thank you SO much! I couldn’t have dreamt of my son’s first flight being any better. You really cemented his passion for flying today.” Nice of him to say, but I’m not entirely sure Ethan was having any more fun than I was….
For more info on how to hook up a young aspiring pilot with a free Young Eagle flight, check out EAA’s website, or give me a holler. All it takes is a genuine interest in flying!
