| Young Eagles
ready to soar Aviation industry taking off By George Schwarz george.schwarz@amarillo.com Publication Date: 06/28/05 The aviation industry will take off in the next decade, adding thousands of jobs, some reaching into outer space. Those jobs will be filled by pilots who are now children, said Jared Aicher, Eagle Flight's pilot. "The first person to step on Mars is on the planet now," he said. "It all starts with aviation." Aicher flew into Amarillo's Tradewind Airport on Monday to work with the local chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association and local pilots who help with the EAA's Young Eagles Program. "The purpose of the Young Eagles program is to introduce kids between 8 and 17 to aviation," said Bob Jones, the president of Amarillo's EAA Chapter 267. "It turns a fire on in kids." The flight lighted a fire for Colby Kitchens, 15, who flew with Hannes Trnka in a Trinidad TB 20. "It makes me want to fly a lot more," Kitchens said after landing. During the flight, Trnka let him turn the airplane back toward Tradewind, Kitchen said. "It was easy," he said. Other Young Eagles flew with Don Johnson in his Stearman biplane and Gary Dunn in his Piper Cherokee 140. Nathan Daniels, 13, was also thrilled, taking his ride with Aicher in the Cessna 172. "It's cool," he said. "I could see my house, my papa's lot and the tallest building in Amarillo." Interested in learning to fly? "Definitely." The home-schooled Daniels said he eventually wants to fly jets or helicopters for the Marine Corps. Aicher said that during a visit to NASA, officials there projected a call for 50,000 aviation jobs in the next 10 years. Aicher and Kerry Widmer, Eagle Flight's project manager, said there's more to it than becoming a pilot. "The whole reasons I'm doing this is that kids think everything has been discovered," Aicher said. "Even if they don't become pilots, they see the world in a different point of view." Widmer and Aicher have backgrounds in education and see aviation as a path for learning. "Our doing this is just instilling the spirit of exploration and the science through aviation," Widmer said.
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