Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 26, 1993 TAG: 9308260343
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Have airplanes. Need kids, ages 8 to 18, to take flights. Need parents' permission. Call (703) 992-4467. Price: free of charge.
EAA chapter 646 of the Roanoke Valley is offering the airplane rides as part of the national organization's Young Eagles Program, a plan to give 1 million youngsters a taste of flight by the year 2000.
Perhaps from a kid's perspective, the question begs asking:
"Are these guys nuts?"
That's what 12-year-old Zack Stoner thought when his teacher, Jane Turner, told him he could get a free tour over the Roanoke Valley back in May.
"It was great," Stoner said. "I've never been flying before. You just really slowly lifted up . . . just so gradual and graceful."
So far, only Stoner, his classmates from Turner's class of aerospace students at the Lucy Addison Aerospace Magnet Middle School, and a few of their friends have seized the opportunity. Turner read about the program in a magazine and contacted the EAA national organization in Oshkosh, Wis., which put her in contact with the Roanoke chapter.
"It's just a fantastic thing that they're doing," Turner said.
Stoner and classmate Mike Chance, 14, went up with pilot Chuck Waring.
"We were kind of hyper, at least I was," Stoner said. "At the height you were up there, it kind of looked like a little [model train] N-gauge would.
"Chuck said we got cheated because we got a fast plane," Stoner said.
The flights are simple, 15 to 30 minutes long, taking off from Roanoke Regional Airport and soaring over Salem, then around to Tanglewood Mall and the Mill Mountain Star and back, said the chapter's secretary, Mike Cunningham.
"The world really looks different from above," he said.
The chapter didn't provide any flights over the summer, but is trying to get the word out to organizations, scout groups, church groups and the like, said chapter president Donald Hunt.
With about eight to 10 airplanes among the chapter's members, they hope to provide flights mostly on Saturdays for whomever signs up. The chapter has a goal of about 200 flights a year. Nationally, more than 20,000 have jumped aboard.
Insurance is provided by the national organization, Hunt said. The pilots, who with the chapter's other members voted almost unanimously to become involved with the program, incur $30 to $40 worth of expenses for each hour's worth of flying time, but then again, they'd probably be flying around on their own, anyway.
Chapter 646's next flights are scheduled for Sept. 18, Hunt said.
Hunt, a retired insurance man, got his student pilot's license at age 16 while growing up in Illinois. The Daleville man periodically tinkers in his garage on the skeleton of a biplane fuselage he's building.
"I can't remember ever not wanting to fly," Hunt said. He hopes there will be lots of youngers who harbor the same sentiments - or at least will jump at the chance for a free airplane ride. He seemed undaunted at the prospect of hoards of kids calling his home.
"That's the whole idea.
"We just want to get them out there," he said. "Most of [the chapter's 30 members] agreed that not enough kids get a chance anymore."
Said Stoner: "It's free and it's fun."
by CNB