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Getting Results Award winner: Young Eagles flight program

Volunteer pilots give kids a chance to experience flight

MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. – This week's Getting Results Award goes to the volunteers of the Young Eagles Flights.

The Experimental Aircraft Association, Chapter 724, holds regular events twice a year to give kids 8-17 a chance to experience flight for the first time.

Pilot Christopher Anderson says the flights usually takes about 15 minutes but it's something they'll remember for life.

"We take them up, we take them over the beach and we fly up to the turn basin so they get to see the cruise ships."

Anderson was one of the nearly 20 pilots volunteering their time and personal planes for the event late last month.

"It's a lot of fun," he says. "Most of them are a bit awestruck."

For many kids this is their first time in a plane.

"I hope the kids, in the future, you know they'll think back and say hey I took that flight and maybe I'll go into aviation as a career." Anderson says, after reflecting on the days flights. He made nearly ten flights that day in his home built experimental aircraft.

The group was nominated by viewer Bobbi Lasher who said in her nomination form, "Besides the pilots, approximately a dozen other volunteers work as the ground crew, registering Young Eagles, printing certificates, matching kids with their pilots and maintaining safety."

Chapter President, Don White, accepted the award and $100 cash prize on behalf of the entire group. 

Chapter 724 has been hosting Young Eagles Days at Merritt Island Airport since 1993. In that time they have flown nearly 7,000 kids. many have gone on to get their pilots license as a result. 

For more information go to: YoungEagles.org

 

 

 

 


About the Author
Paul Giorgio headshot

Paul is a Florida native who graduated from the University of Central Florida. As a multimedia journalist, Paul enjoys profiling the people and places that make Central Florida unique.

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