EAA pilots giverides to children without charge Posted On: Monday, Sep. 28 2009 04:35 AM By Jackie Stone
Killeen Daily Herald

Michelle Trudo knew she wanted to get her wings from the first time she went up in a small plane as a middle school student.

Now that she has grown up and become a pilot, she in turn gave flights to the next generation Saturday.

Trudo – a first-grade teacher at Ira Cross Elementary – was one of a handful of private pilots who volunteered to go out to Skylark Field and give free airplane rides as part of the Experimental Aviation Association's Young Eagles program.

The Young Eagles program was started in 1992 to give children and teens from 8 to 17 years old a chance to fly and get interested in aviation.

The local EAA chapter tries to conduct two or three Young Eagles rallies each year, and aims to register about 50 children for flights at each one, said George Loffert, president of EAA, Chapter 542. By mid-morning Saturday, about 35 were registered.

Some of the passengers had no experience with planes, while others already had the flying bug.

Kyle Evarts, a helicopter pilot recently stationed at Fort Hood, said ever since he took his son Joshua to the Naval Airstation Pensacola base in Florida a few years ago, all the 11-year-old wants to be is a pilot.

"He doesn't want to fly helicopters, he wants to fly jets," Evarts said. "Hopefully, this will keep him going that way."

Joshua had never been in anything but a commercial airplane before, but when he jumped out of the four-seater Beechcraft after the propeller swung to a stop, he was grinning from ear to ear.

"It was awesome," he said.

Jim Livingston has been piloting Young Eagles flights since 1995, and has taken up about 775 children in addition to those he flew on Saturday.

Livingston said he sees everything from excitement to nervousness in the children when they start out, but after the plane takes off, it's almost always the same.

"They're all smiles and when you get back in, they say, 'Can we go again?'" he said.

Before each flight, the pilots greeted children and their parents and led them around the plane for a pre-flight safety check and to show them the knobs, switches and flaps.

Saturday was Trudo's first time volunteering at a Young Eagles rally, but she has taken up other first-timers and said children aren't much different from adults when it comes to planes.

"The adults are a little more restrained in their enthusiasm, but inside they're both jumping up and down," she said.

Some parents wistfully watched the skies and regretted the age limit on the free flights.

"She wanted to be 17 today," said Jacqueline Hamilton, pointing to her grown-up daughter Lewanna, whose 10-year-old son Kenneth was already in the air.

Lewanna's children had never been around small planes before, but she said her son already wanted to buy his own plane.

Loffert said last year one of the first girls they took up in the early days of the program came to a rally to tell them she had become an airline pilot.

Saturday's rally was the first in Killeen in several years, but Loffert said they hope to do more in the future.

All those who were given a ride Saturday will have their names entered into the "World's Largest Logbook" on display at EAA headquarters in Oshkosh, Wis.

Contact Jackie Stone at jstone@kdhnews.com or (254) 501-7474.