JP,

Sounds like you had a great day. What you and your wife did for the kids is
fantastic and hopefully will stick with a few of them.

Jon


"JP Krievins" wrote in message
m...
in recognition of the centennial of flight, my wife has been teaching
her middle school level science classes this fall about the Wright
Brothers and aviation. She teaches at a special purpose school, a
residential facility for youth with various problems that keep them
out of the normal public schools. For yesterday, she organized a field
trip for her kids to our local airport, which has a flight training
program run by a local college.

I spent the morning helping out with running the kids through the
activities there. The kids were divided in groups of about five or
six, taking turns touring the facility, sitting in airplanes, flying
the simulator, answering Wright Bros trivia questions to "win"
T-shirts, and flying the paper airplanes they had built inside the
hangar. Lot's of smiles and "big" eyes from kids that don't have a lot
to look forward to, particularly in the holiday season.

We ended the morning's activities by launching a rubber band powered
Wright Flyer model in the hangar. It flew for about 3-4 seconds and 60
feet, which wasn't too bad (and was better than the full size replica
did).

I had brought our Cherokee over to the college hangar, and the kids
were surprised to learn that their teacher had a "real" airplane. I
think she was a little embarassed to have admit that she didn't fly
it. Maybe all this aviation stuff she's been teaching will get her
thinking about moving over to the left seat?

A little prequel to this story. I drove over to the college hangar
earlier that morning to unload and set up some of the equipment for
the field trip. The only person there was a young student pilot
pulling planes out of the hangar, as the sun was coming up in the
east. I offered her a hand and soon we had the Cessna 150 freed up and
parked at the gas pump. As she was fueling, I asked her where she was
going. She replied that she was flying her first solo cross-country
that morning. She had that expression of excitement, joy and fear in
her eyes that took me back to that first time of "leaving the nest" as
a pilot. I wished her well, and went on with my unloading. When I
heard her engine fire up, I stepped out and gave her a thumbs up. She
returned the gesture with a big smile.

Later that morning, I flew the Cherokee, on it's way back to the
T-hangars. I did a few steep turns, enjoying the cold smooth air and
clear blue skies. I'd flown a cross-country the day before for a
business trip, so the winter flying itch wasn't biting too bad.

But, reflecting on the day, I am thinking more about the new
beginnings I had witnessed than on my own flight. The middle schoolers
with those freshly planted seeds. Seeds that could grow into a
motivation strong enough to pull a young life towards a brighter
future. A young lady, already with this vision, taking on one of the
first big challenges along that road.

Yesterday I was a witness to the dawn of the next hundred years of
flight. Not a bad way to spend the day.

JP Krievins