Last week, I spent three days volunteering for Big World flight for Education (http://bigworldflight.org ), a Boeing Global Corporate Citizenship listed non-profit organization. This is my second year instructing. The program is fairly simple. We have contracts with four towns in Eastern Washington. We fly or drive into the towns and kids show up in buses from the local schools. We perform a fly-by as the buses show up, land and have a safety briefing, introduction, start the teaching sessions, then closing. We have four sessions: 1. The Pre-Flight Walk Around - the airplane parts, concepts of lift, speed range and performances, Controls (3 axis of rotations), appreciation costs of airplanes, what we carry on trips.. 2. The airport – Towered and non-towered, the taxiways, runways, lights, economic and community impacts, types… 3. The pattern – Communication, visual flight, pattern parts, winds, noise, access… 4. Flight Planning – cross country flight plans, fuel/range, weather, sectional maps, communication… We plant the seed in these kids, who around 6th grade. Most of the kids have not been around planes and may not have known of the local airports. There is no Boeing in these towns, and no engineering companies. The kids learn their potential to become pilots. In General Aviation, anyone can take a lesson, can solo at 16, can take friends with a license at 18 years old. Some express interest in building and designing airplanes in their future. Of course, we talk about Boeing and the aviation industry. The instructors are not just Boeing engineers but teachers, writers, and retired airline pilots. We are all pilots. We have briefings every day before and after. Last year we had 400 kids total at Republic, Oroville, Tonasket, and Okanogan in four days. It’s really unbelievable how amazed the kids are while learning and how they all pay close attention to us. Sometimes, it’s the subject matter that can peak their interest to study and understand Science and Math and to think about using it for practical purposes.
Review from Guidestar
