Start a Young Eagles Program at Your Airport
Published on February 2019
There are a million ways to have fun with airplanes, but nothing in the cockpit can top the sheer joy of a Young Eagles flight. The Experimental Aircraft Association launched the Young Eagles program in 1992. It’s delivering about 80,000 rides each year but there are 56 million school kids in the U.S., so the joy of flying is invisible to 99% of the school-age kids in America. We need more exuberant young pilots, which means we need you. One answer is to start a Young Eagles program at your airport. At my home-drome in central North Carolina, a robust Young Eagles program has flown 6,000 kids over fifteen years. We consistently pack 200 kids into a gaggle of Cessnas, Mooneys, Diamonds, Pipers, and light sports in a Saturday. While it’s a lot of work, it’s also a lot of fun. Here’s my recipe to whip up a program at your local field.
